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
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.
In every artist there is a touch of audacity without which no talent is conceivable.
The artist may be well advised to keep his work to himself till it is completed, because no one can readily help him or advise him with it.. but the scientist is wiser not to withhold a single finding or a single conjecture from publicity.
By the artist's seizing any one object from nature, that object no longer is part of nature. One can go so far as to say that theartist creates the object in that very moment by emphasizing its significant, characteristic, and interesting aspects or, rather, by adding the higher values.
Personality is everything in art and poetry.
Create, artist, do not talk.
The artist has a twofold relation to nature; he is at once her master and her slave.
To live within limits. To want one thing. Or a few things very much and love them dearly. Cling to them, survey them from every angle. Become one with them - that is what makes the poet, the artist, the human being.
A great artist... must be shaken by the naked truths that will not be comforted. This divine discontent, this disequilibrium, this state of inner tension is the source of artistic energy.
When all is said the greatest action is to limit and isolate one's self.
I've studied now Philosophy and Jurisprudence, Medicine - and even, alas! Theology - from end to end with labor keen; and here, poor fool with all my lore I stand, no wiser than before.
I've studied now Philosophy and Jurisprudence, Medicine -- and even, alas! Theology -- from end to end with labor keen; and here, poor fool with all my lore I stand, no wiser than before.