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
It is much easier to meet with error than to find truth; error is on the surface, and can be more easily met with; truth is hid in great depths, the way to seek does not appear to all the world.
We should treat children as God does us, who makes us happiest when He leaves us under the influence of innocent delusions.
There is no outward sign of true courtesy that does not rest on a deep moral foundation.
If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet.
If each one does their duty as an individual and if each one works in their own proper vocation, it will be right with the whole.
Whoever makes it a rule to test action by thought, thought by action, cannot falter, and if he does, will soon find his way back to the right road.
Instruction does much, but encouragement everything." (Letter to A.F. Oeser, Nov. 9, 1768)
What a man does not understand, he does not possess.
He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line.
If the world does improve on the whole, yet youth must always begin anew, and go through the stages of culture from the beginning.
Everything we do has a result. But that which is right and prudent does not always lead to good, nor the contrary to what is bad.
Would you require a wretched being, whose life is slowly wasting under a lingering disease, to despatch himself at once by the stroke of a dagger? Does not the very disorder which consumes his strength deprive him of the courage to effect his deliverance?
He loves not who does not see the faults of the beloved as virtues.
He who does not stretch himself according to the coverlet finds his feet uncovered.