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
As to the value of conversions, God alone can judge. God alone can know how wide are the steps which the soul has to take before it can approach to a community with Him, to the dwelling of the perfect, or to the intercourse and friendship of higher natures.
Everything perfect in its kind has to transcend its own kind, it must become something different and incomparable. In some notes the nightingale is still a bird; then it rises above its class and seems to suggest to every winged creature what singing is truly like.
Could we perfect human nature, we might also expect a perfect state of things.
A mathematician is only perfect insofar as he is a perfect man, sensitive to the beauty of truth.
Let no one be like another, yet everyone like the highest. How is this done? Be each one perfect in himself.
An angel! Nonsense! Everybody so describes his mistress; and yet I find it impossible to tell you how perfect she is, or why she is so perfect: suffice it to say she has captivated all my senses.
The nude is the perfect expression of freedom. Freedom to be.
Even the lowliest, provided he is whole, can be happy, and in his own . way, perfect.
The style of writing required in the great world is distinguished by a free and daring grace, a careless security, a fine and sharp polish, a delicate and perfect taste; while that fitted for the people is characterized by a vigorous natural fulness, a profound depth of feeling, and an engaging naivete.
Only the heart without a stain knows perfect ease. [Ger., Ganz unbefleckt geniesst sich nur das Herz.]
Perfection is the measure of heaven, and the wish to be perfect the measure of man.
We often feel that we lack something, and seem to see that very quality in someone else, promptly attributing all our own qualities to him too, and a kind of ideal contentment as well. And so the happy mortal is a model of complete perfection--which we have ourselves created.
When all is said the greatest action is to limit and isolate one's self.
I've studied now Philosophy and Jurisprudence, Medicine - and even, alas! Theology - from end to end with labor keen; and here, poor fool with all my lore I stand, no wiser than before.