Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann WolfgangGoethetə/; German: ; 28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings by him exist...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth28 August 1749
CountryGermany
Limitation of aims is the mother of wisdom and the secret of achievement.
Writing is busy idleness.
Conscience is the virtue of the observers not the agents of action
Nothing is more odious than the majority, for it consists of a few powerful leaders, a certain number of accommodating scoundrels and submissive weaklings, and a mass of men who trot after them without thinking, or knowing their own minds.
Why look for conspiracy when stupidity can explain so much
Oh, happy he who still hopes he can emerge from Error's boundless sea! - Faust.
He who can not learn to love must flatter.
To know of someone here and there whom we accord with, who is living on with us, even in silence - - this makes our earthly ball a peopled garden.
Battle not with monsters, for then you become one.
There is no patriotic art.
The Bible grows more beautiful, as we grow in our understanding of it.
There is no remedy but love for the great superiority of others
What am I then...? Everything that I have seen, heard, and observed I have collected and exploited. My works have been nourished by countless different individuals, by innocent and wise ones, people of intelligence and dunces. Childhood, maturity and old age all have brought me their thoughts....their perspectives on life. I have often reaped what others have sowed. My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name Goethe.
Don't give us your doubts, gives us your certainties, for we have doubts enough of our own.