Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832)
German novelist, dramatist, poet, humanist, scientist, philosopher, and for ten years chief minister of state at Weimar.
"Goethe suggested, in the interest of clearness one might very well make a clean sweep of all terms like classic, modernist, realist, naturalist and substitute the simple terms healthy and sickly."
Wo viel Licht ist, ist auch viel Schatten.
The desire to explain what is simple by what is complex, what is easy by what is difficult, is a calamity .
Was glänzt, ist für den Augenblick geboren;
das Echte bleibt der Nachwelt unverloren.
Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben der täglich sie erobern muss.
What's it to you if I love you?
Wer nichts wagt, gerwinnt nichts.
Wer nie sein Brod mit Tränen ass,
Wer nie die kummervollen Nächte
Auf seinem Bette weinend sass,
Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte.
When you see some evil you proceed to immediate action, you make an immediate attack to cure the symptom.
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?
One is never satisfied with a portrait of a person that one knows.
Tell me you stones, O speak, you towering palaces!
Streets, say a word! Spirit of this place, are you dumb?
All things are alive in your sacred walls
Eternal Rome, it's only for me all is still.
Man sagt: „Studire, Künstler, die Natur!” Es ist aber keine Kleinigkeit, aus dem Gemeinen das Edle, aus der Unform das Schöne zu entwickeln.
Only mankind
Can do the impossible:
He can distinguish,
He chooses and judges,
He can give permanence
To the moment.
Schön war ich auch, und das war mein Verderben.
We can't form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.
Piety is not an end but a means to attain ... the highest degree of culture. This is why ... those who parade piety as a purpose and an aim mostly turn into hypocrites
Meine Ruh' ist hin,
Mein Herz ist schwer.
Ich singe, wie der Vogel singt
Der in den Zweigen wohnet.
O'er all the hilltops
Is quiet now,
In all the treetops
Hearest thou
Hardly a breath;
The birds are asleep in the trees:
Wait; soon like these
Thou too shalt rest.
Neuere Poeten tun viel Wasser in die Tinte.