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
Is it life, I ask, is it even prudence, To bore thyself and bore the students?
The main thing is to have a soul that loves the truth and harbours it where he finds it. And another thing: truth requires constant repetition, because error is being preached about us all the time, and not only by isolated individuals but by the masses. In the newspapers and encyclopedias, in schools and universities, everywhere error rides high and basks in the consciousness of having the majority on its side.
In the end we retain from our studies only that which we practically apply.
Everyone believes in his youth that the world really began with him, and that all merely exists for his sake.
One never learns to understand truly anything but what one loves.
A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world’s torrent.
They teach in academies far too many things, and far too much that is useless.
Aptitudes are assumed, they should become accomplishments. That is the purpose of all education.
If we take people only as they are, then we make them worse; if we treat them as if they were what they should be, then we bring them to where they can be brought.
I hate everything that merely instructs me without augmenting or directly invigorating my activity.
We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.
Alas! how much there is in education, and in our social institutions, to prepare us and our children for insanity.
Love does not dominate; it cultivates.
By seeking and blundering we learn.