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
All truly wise thoughts have been thoughts already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.
It is natural to man to regard himself as the object of the creation, and to think of all things in relation to himself, and the degree in which they can serve and be useful to him.
Whatever we think out, whatever we take in hand to do, should be perfectly and finally finished, that the world, if it must alter, will only have to spoil it; we have then nothing to do but unite the severed, to recollect and restore the dismembered.
The man who acts never has any conscience; no one has any conscience but the man who thinks
Do people conform to the instructions of us old ones? Each thinks he must know best about himself, and thus many are lost entirely.
Men are much more apt to agree in what they do than in what they think.
Secrecy has many advantages, for when you tell someone the purpose of any object right away, they often think there is nothing to it.
The rainbow mirrors human aims and action. Think, and more clearly wilt thou grasp it, seeing Life is but light in many-hued reflection.
Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again.
The greatest piece of folly is that every man thinks himself compelled to hand down what people think they have known.
Don't dissipate your powers; strive to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it will surely repent of every ill-judged outlay.
If man thinks about his physical or moral state he usually discovers that he is ill.
If we meet someone who owes us a debt of gratitude, we remember the fact at once. How often we can meet someone to whom we owe a debt of gratitude without thinking about it at all!
We're only really thinking when we can't think out fully what we are really thinking about!