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
Error is to truth as sleep is to waking. I have observed that one turns, as if refreshed, from error back to truth.
True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them.
I curse all negative purism that tells me not to use a word from another language that either expresses something that my own language cannot or does that in a more delicate manner.
The force of a language does not consist of rejecting what is foreign but of swallowing it.
The greatest happiness for the thinking person is to have explored the explorable and to venerate in equanimity that which cannotbe explored.
It would not be worth your while to reach the age of seventy if all the wisdom of the world were to be foolishness before God.
The dignity of art probably appears most eminently with music since it does not have any material that needs to be discounted. Music is all form and content and elevates and ennobles everything that it expresses.
Normally, people believe that, if they hear just words, that these words must lead to some thought.
The bad thing is that thinking about thought doesn't help at all; one has to have it from nature so that the good ideas appear before us like free children of God calling to us: Here we are.
If you have science and art, You also have religion; But if you don't have them, You better have religion.
The question "From where does the poet get it?" addresses only the what, nobody learns anything about the how when asking that question.
If you want to understand poetry, You have to go to its origin, If you want to understand the poet, You have to go to the Poet's home.
Give shape, artist! don't talk! Your poem be but a breath.
After all, poets shouldn't be their own interpreters and shouldn't carefully dissect their poems into everyday prose; that would mean the end of being poets. Poets send their creations into the world, it is up to the reader, the aesthetician, and the critic to determine what they wanted to say with their creations.