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
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being
Only people unable to produce anything themselves feel there is nothing there.
When two people are really happy about one another, one can generally assume that they are mistaken.
What chance gathers she easily scatters. A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.
Why do we hear such everlasting negative talk! People all imagine they'll be giving something away if they recognize the least bit of merit.
People may live as much retired from the world as they like, but sooner or later they find themselves debtor or creditor to some one.
People of a vertain rank will always keep a cool distance from common people, as if they were afraid to lose their dignity by too much familiarity.
If you accept people for what they are, they will become worse. Treat them like they should be, and they will become better.
Whatever we may say against collections, which present authors in a disjointed form, they nevertheless bring about many excellent results. We are not always so composed, so full of wisdom, that we are able to take in at once the whole scope of a work according to its merits. Do we not mark in a book passages which seem to have a direct reference to ourselves? Young people especially, who have failed in acquiring a complete cultivation of mind, are roused in a praiseworthy way by brilliant passages...
We don't get to know people when they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are like.
People always fancy that we must become old to become wise; but, in truth, as years advance, it is hard to keep ourselves as wise as we were.
People will allow their faults to be shown them; they will let themselves be punished for them; they will patiently endure many things because of them; they only become impatient when they have to lay them aside.
Do people conform to the instructions of us old ones? Each thinks he must know best about himself, and thus many are lost entirely.
When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.