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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes - Page 57

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I make presents to the mother but think of the daughter.

I make presents to the mother but think of the daughter.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Daughter, Mother, Men

One is never satisfied with a portrait of persons whom one knows. That is why I have always pitied portraitists. One demands so seldom of others the impossible, but demands just that of the portraitists.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Portraits, Demand, Impossible

The brilliant passes, like the dew at morn; The true endures, for ages yet unborn.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Truth, Age, Dew
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1984). “Faust”

What makes people happy is activity; changing evil itself into good by power, working in a God like manner.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Happiness, People, Evil

Rash combat oft immortalizes man; if he should fall, he is renowned in song; but after-ages reckon not the ceaseless tears which the forsaken woman sheds. Poets tell us not of the many nights consumed in weeping, or of the dreary days wherein her anguished soul vainly yearns to call her loved one back.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Song, Fall, Night

Give shape, artist! don't talk! Your poem be but a breath.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Art, Giving, Poetry

At the end of life thoughts hitherto impossible come to the collected mind, like good spirits which let themselves down from the shining heights of the past.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Past, Shining, Mind

All lyrical work must, as a whole, be perfectly intelligible, but in some particulars a little unintelligible.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Poetry, Littles, Lyrical
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.3567, Delphi Classics

Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Art, Work, New Beginnings
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (19??). “Gleams From..: Being Passages Selected and Translated from the Prose Writings of Goethe and from His Converstaions with Eckermann”

We amuse ourselves painting our prison-walls with bright figures and brilliant landscapes.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Wall, Landscape, Brilliant
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2016). “THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER (Literary Classics Series): Historical Romance Novel”, p.7, e-artnow

The fate of the architect is the strangest of all. How often he expends his whole soul, his whole heart and passion, to produce buildings into which he himself may never enter.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Passion, Heart, Fate
Elective Affinities bk. 2, ch. 3 (1808)

Talent is nurtured in solitude; character is formed in the stormy billows of the world. [Ger., Es bildet ein talent sich in der Stille, Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt.]

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Character, Solitude, World

It is better to do the smallest thing in the world than to hold half an hour to be too small a thing.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Half, World, Hours
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1963). “Goethe's world view: presented in his reflections and maxims”

The dignity of art probably appears most eminently with music since it does not have any material that needs to be discounted. Music is all form and content and elevates and ennobles everything that it expresses.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Music, Art, Doe

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Success, Confidence, Men

The history of knowledge is a great fugue in which the voices of the nations one after the other emerge.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Knowledge, Voice, Fugue
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.63, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The bed of flowers Loosens amain, The beauteous snowdrops Droop o'er the plain. The crocus opens Its glowing bud, Like emeralds others, Others, like blood. With saucy gesture Primroses flare, And roguish violets, Hidden with care; And whatsoever There stirs and strives, The Spring's contented, If works and thrives.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Spring, Flower, Glowing
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.2888, Delphi Classics

Everything transitory is but an image.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Transitory

The highest problem of any art is to cause by appearance the illusion of a higher reality.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Art, Reality, Causes

First let a man teach himself, and then he will be taught by others.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Teaching, Men, Firsts
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.173, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The history of science is science itself; the history of the individual, the individual.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Science, Historical, Individual

The artist may be well advised to keep his work to himself till it is completed, because no one can readily help him or advise him with it... but the scientist is wiser not to withhold a single finding or a single conjecture from publicity.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Artist, Publicity, May
"Bartlett's Familiar Quotations". Book by John Bartlett, 2014.

It is related of an Englishman that he hanged himself to avoid the daily task of dressing and undressing.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Daily Tasks, Insulting, England

The greatest piece of folly is that every man thinks himself compelled to hand down what people think they have known.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Knowledge, Men, Thinking
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.3589, Delphi Classics

It has been said that figures rule the world. Maybe. But I am sure that figures show us whether it is being ruled well or badly.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Math, World, Statistics

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