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
Tell me with whom thou art found, and I will tell thee who thou art
There is no art in turning a goddess into a witch, a virgin into a whore, but the opposite operation, to give dignity to what has been scorned, to make the degraded disireable, that calls for art or for character.
Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient.
The highest problem of every art is, by means of appearances, to produce the illusion of a loftier reality
A school of art or of anything else is to be looked on as a single individual, who keeps talking to himself for a hundred years, and feels an extreme satisfaction with his own circle of favorite ideas, be they ever so silly.
As all Nature's thousands changes But one changeless God proclaim; So in Art's wide kingdom ranges One sole meaning still the same: This is Truth, eternal Reason, Which from Beauty takes its dress, And serene through time and season Stands aye in loveliness.
Mozart is a human incarnation of the divine force of creation.
He who possesses science and art, Possesses religion as well; He who possesses neither of these, Had better have religion.
The arts are the salt of the earth; as salt relates to food, the arts relate to technology.
The art of governing is a great metier, requiring the whole man, and it is therefore not well for a ruler to have too strong tendencies for other affairs.
The artist who is not also a craftsman is no good; but, alas, most of our artists are nothing else.
Some books seem to have been written, not to teach us anything, but to let us know that the author has known something.
Of the truly creative no one is ever master; it must be left to go its own way.
Wind is the loving Wooer of waters; Wind blends together Billows all-foaming. Spirit of man, Thou art like unto water! Fortune of man, Thou art like unto wind!