Quotes Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - page 4
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One must be something to be able to do something.
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.
All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
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Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.
The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.
Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.
We cannot too soon convince ourselves how easily we may be dispensed with in the world. What important personages we imagine ourselves to be! We think that we alone are the life of the circle in which we move; in our absence, we fancy that life, existence, breath will come to a general pause, and, alas, the gap which we leave is scarcely perceptible, so quickly is it filled again; nay, it is often the place, if not of something better, at least for something more agreeable.
The absence of temptation is the absence of virtue.
Napoleon affords us an example of the danger of elevating one's self to the absolute, and sacrificing everything to the carrying out of an idea.
Nothing will change the fact that I cannot produce the least thing without absolute solitude.
Mankind? That is an abstraction. There have always been and always will be only individuals.
All that is alive tends toward color, individuality, specificity, effectiveness and opacity. All that is done with life inclines toward knowledge, abstraction, generality transfiguration and transparency.
English plays, Atrocious in content, Absurd in form, Objectionable in action, Execrable EnglishTheatre.
The suffering may be moral or physical; and in my opinion it is just as absurd to call a man a coward who destroys himself, as to call a man a coward who dies of a malignant fever.
He who wishes to exert a useful influence must be careful to insult nothing. Let him not be troubled by what seems absurd, but concentrate his energies to the creation of what is good. He must not demolish, but build. He must raise temples where mankind may come and partake of the purest pleasure.
He who is plenteously provided for from within needs but little from without.
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What you desire when young, you have in abundance when old.
