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
If a man sets out to study all the laws, he will have no time left to transgress them.
True works of art are a manifestation of the higher laws of nature.
The iron hand of necessity commands, and her stern decree is supreme law, to which the gods even must submit. In deep silence rules the uncounselled sister of eternal fate. Whatever she lays upon thee, endure; perform whatever she commands.
We eagerly get hold of a law that serves as a weapon to our passions.
Only law can give us freedom.
The Primal Plant is going be the strangest creature in the world, which Nature herself must envy me. With this model and the key to it, it will be possible to go on for ever inventing plants and know that their existence is logical; that is to say, if they do not actually exist, they could, for they are not the shadowy phantoms of a vain imagination, but possess an inner necessity and truth. The same law will be applicable to all other living organisms.
Everything factual is, in a sense, theory. The blue of the sky exhibits the basic laws of chromatics. There is no sense in looking for something behind phenomena: they are theory.
If one mistreats citizens of foreign countries, one infringes upon one's duty toward one's own subjects; for thus one exposes themto the law of retribution.
Mastery is proven only in limitation, and law alone can give us freedom.
The older I get the more I trust in the law according to which the rose and the lily bloom.
It is better for you to suffer an injustice than for the world to be without law. Therefore, let everyone submit to the law.
All rights and laws are still transmitted, Like an eternal sickness to the race. [Ger., Es erben sich Gesetz and Rechte Wie eine ew'ge Krankheit fort.]
Alas, I have studied philosophy, the law as well as medicine, and to my sorrow, theology; studied them well with ardent zeal, yet here I am, a wretched fool, no wiser than I was before.
Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.