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
There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternally new now that builds and creates itself out of the Best as the past withdraws.
National literature no longer means very much, the age of world literature is due.
He who only tastes his error will long dwell with it, will take delight in it as in a singular felicity; while he who drains it to the dregs will, if he be not crazy, find it to be what it is.
Man cannot persist long in a conscious state, he must throw himself back into the unconscious, for his root lives there.
From desire I plunge to its fulfilment, where I long once more for desire.
No one knows what he is doing so long as he is acting rightly; but of what is wrong one is always conscious.
There is no past we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternal now that builds and creates out of the past something new and better.
A word spoken is a terrible thing when it suddenly utters what the heart has long allowed.
Error is acceptable as long as we are young; but one must not drag it along into old age.
I have observed that as long as one lives and bestirs himself, he can always find food and raiment, though it may not be of the choicest description.
We learn to treasure what is above this earth; we long for revelation, which nowhere burns more purely and more beautifully than in the New Testament.
A man avails himself of the truth so long as it is serviceable; but he seizes on what is false with a passionate eloquence as soon as he can make a momentary use of it.
Everything that we call Invention or Discovery in the higher sense of the word is the serious exercise and activity of an original feeling for truth, which, after a long course of silent cultivation, suddenly flashes out into fruitful knowledge.
There is nothing new on earth / For a person who lives long and experiences much. / In my years of youthful wandering / I have seen crystallized people.