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
What chance gathers she easily scatters. A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.
Woe to him who would ascribe something like reason to Chance, and make a religion of surrendering to it.
A resolution that is communicated is no longer within thy power; thy attentions become now the plaything of chance; he who would have his commands certainly carried out must take man by surprise.
I consider him of no account who esteems himself just as the popular breath may chance to raise him.
Pity on the person who has become accustomed to seeing in necessity something arbitrary, who ascribes to the arbitrary some sort of reason, and even claims that following that sort of reason has religious value.
There is nothing in life so irrational, that good sense and chance may not set it to rights; nothing so rational, that folly and chance may not utterly confound it.
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.
The right man is the one that seizes the moment.
There would be far less suffering in the world if human beings-God knows why they are made like this-did not use their imaginations so busily in recalling the memories of past misfortunes, instead of trying to bear an indifferent present.
Es gibt kein Vergangenes, daß man zurücksehnen dürfte, es gibt nur ein ewig Neues, daß sich aus den erweiterten Elementen des Vergangenen gestaltet; und die echte Sehnsucht muß stets produktiv sein, ein neues Besseres zu schaffen.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Everything in the world may be endured except continued prosperity.