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
Poetic fire sank low in me When it was God I sought to see, But up it flamed, up to the sky, When it was Evil I had to fly
We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.
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.
Thank God when he oppresses you, and again when he releases you.
Thank God when He lays a burden on thee, and thank Him when He takes it off.
As man is, so is his God. And thus is God oft strangely odd.
Nature is so perfect that the Trinity couldn't have fashioned her any more perfect. She is an organ on which our Lord plays and the devil works the bellows.
What is predestination? Answer: God is more powerful and wiser than we are, therefore he deals with us according to his pleasure.
As a man is, so is his God; therefore God was so often an object of mockery. [Ger., Wie einer ist, so ist sein Gott, Darum ward Gott so oft zu Spott.]
Life is the childhood of our immortality.
In all things it is better to hope than to despair
Each one sees what he carries in his heart
Everybody wants to get old, but nobody wants to be old
That is the true season of love; when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved as much before, and that no one will ever love in the same way again.