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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes - Page 38

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And we went our separate ways without having understood each other. As in this world nobody understands the other easily.

And we went our separate ways without having understood each other. As in this world nobody understands the other easily.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Understanding, World, Way

It is with art as with love: How can a man of the world,with all his distractions, keep the inwardness which an artist must possess if he hopes to attain perfection? That inwardness which the spectator must share if he is to understand the work as the artist wishes and hopes... Believe me, talents are like virtues; either you must love them for their own sake or renounce them altogether. And they are only recognized and rewarded when we have practised them in secret, like a dangerous mystery."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Art, Believe, Men

Limitation of aims is the mother of wisdom and the secret of achievement.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Mother, Achievement, Secret

Each traveler should know what he has to see, and what properly belongs to him, on a journey.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Travel, Journey, Should
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann, Frédéric Jacob Soret (1850). “Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret”, p.86

The best pleasures of this world are not quite true.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
World, Pleasure, This World

I curse all negative purism that tells me not to use a word from another language that either expresses something that my own language cannot or does that in a more delicate manner.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Negative, Doe, Use

To like things like, whatever one may ail; There is certain help.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
May, Helping, Certain

Paternity is based anyhow only upon conviction: I am convinced, therefore, I am the father.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Father, Conviction, Convinced

Just as, out of habit, one consults a run-down clock as though it were still going, so too one may look at the face of a beautiful woman as though he still loved her.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Beautiful, Running, Looks
"Maxims and Reflections". Book by by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, translated by Elisabeth Stopp. Maxim 246, 1998.

The present moment is a powerful goddess.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Inspirational, Time, Powerful

A noble soul alone can noble souls attract; And knows alone, as ye, to hold them.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Soul, Noble, Nobility

Everything in the world may be endured, except only a succession of prosperous days. [Ger., Alles in der Welt lasst sich ertragen, Nur nicht eine Reihe von schonen Tagen.]

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
World, May, Prosperity

What men usually say of misfortunes, that they never come alone, may with equal truth be said of good fortune; nay, of other circumstances which gather round us in a harmonious way, whether it arise from a kind of fatality, or that man has the power of attracting to himself things that are mutually related.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Men, May, Way

A man may twist as he pleases, and do what he pleases, but he inevitably comes back to the track to which nature has destined him.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Men, Track, Twists
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1849). “The auto-biography of Goethe: Truth and poetry: from my life”, p.114

He only fears men who does not know them, and he who avoids them will soon misjudge them.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Men, Doe, Knows
"Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 487-93, Torquato Tasso. I. 2. 72, 1922.

Superstition is the poesy of practical life; hence, a poet is none the worse for being superstitious.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Superstitions, Poet, Practicals
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1853). “Goethe's Opinions on the World, Mankind, Literature, Science, and Art”, p.111

My inheritance how lordly wide and fair; Time is my fair seed-field, to Time I'm heir.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Time, Inheritance, Heirs

Our virtues and view spring from one root.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Spring, Views, Roots

The question "From where does the poet get it?" addresses only the what, nobody learns anything about the how when asking that question.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Poetry, Doe, Asking

Conscience is the virtue of the observers not the agents of action

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Agents, Action, Virtue

There is a great difference, whether the poet seeks the particular for the sake of the general or sees the general in the particular. From the former procedure there ensues allegory, in which the particular serves only as illustration, as example of the general. The latter procedure, however, is genuinely the nature of poetry; it expresses something particular, without thinking of the general or pointing to it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Thinking, Illustration, Differences

Men in a state of nature, uncivilized nations, children, have a great fondness for colors in their utmost brightness, and especially for yellow-red.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Children, Men, Yellow

Should I not be proud, when for twenty years I have had to admit to myself that the great Newton and all the mathematicians and noble calculators along with him were involved in a decisive error with respect to the doctrine of color, and that I among millions was the only one who knew what was right in this great subject of nature?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Errors, Color, Years
Letter to Eckermann, December 30, 1823.

What must the English and French think of the language of our philosophers when we Germans do not understand it ourselves?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Thinking, Philosopher, Language
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.222, Ravenio Books

Whoever strenuously endeavors, him we can rescue.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Rescue, Endeavor

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