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It Is Commonly The Personal Character Of A Writer Which Gives Him His Public Significance. It Is Not Imparted By His Genius. Napoleon Said Of Corneille, "were He Living I Would Make Him A King;" But He Did Not Read Him. He Read Racine, Yet He Said Nothing Of The Kind Of Racine.

-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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It Is Commonly The

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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It Is Commonly The Personal Character Of A Writer Which Gives Him His Public Significance. It Is Not Imparted By His Genius. Napoleon Said Of Corneille, "were He Living I Would Make Him A King;" But He Did Not Read Him. He Read Racine, Yet He Said Nothing Of The Kind Of Racine.

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Whatever Necessity Lays Upon Thee, Endure; Whatever She Commands, Do.

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Wood Burns Because It Has The Proper Stuff In It; And A Man Becomes Famous Because He Has The Proper Stuff In Him.

There Is Nothing In Which People More Betray Their Character Than In What They Laugh At.

Lamps Make Oil-spots And Candles Need Snuffing; It Is Only The Light Of Heaven That Shines Pure And Leaves No Stain.

Once I Blazed Across The Sky, Leaving Trails Of Flame; I Fell To Earth, And Here I Lie - Who'll Help Me Up Again? -a Shooting Star

I Hate All Bungling As I Do Sin, But Particularly Bungling In Politics, Which Leads To The Misery And Ruin Of Many Thousands And Millions Of People.

Every Individual Who Is Not Creative Has A Negative, Narrow, Exclusive Taste And Succeeds In Depriving Creative Being Of Its Energy And Life.

Austere Perseverance, Hash And Continuous... Rarely Fails Of Its Purpose, For Its Silent Power Grows Irresistible Greater With Time.

The Style Of Writing Required In The Great World Is Distinguished By A Free And Daring Grace, A Careless Security, A Fine And Sharp Polish, A Delicate And Perfect Taste; While That Fitted For The People Is Characterized By A Vigorous Natural Fulness, A Profound Depth Of Feeling, And An Engaging Naivete.

A Well-bred Carriage Is Difficult To Imitate; For In Strictness It Is Negative, And It Implies A Long-continued Previous Training.

The History Of A Man Is In His Character.

Never Let A Day Pass Without Looking At Some Perfect Work Of Art, Hearing Some Great Piece Of Music And Reading, In Part, Some Great Book.

Yet Through Delivery Orators Succeed, I Feel That I Am Far Behind Indeed.

Let Us Live, While We Are Alive!

Talent Develops In Quiet, Alone; Character Is Sharpened In The Torrent Of The World.

In Art, To Express The Infinite One Should Suggest Infinitely More Than Is Expressed.

The March Of Intellect, Which Licks All The World Into Shape, Has Even Reached The Devil.

Night Is The Other Half Of Life, And The Better Half.

Most Man Only Care For Science So Far As They Get A Living By It, And That They Worship Even Error When It Affords Them A Subsistence.

One Should Not Search For Anything Behind The Phenomena. They Themselves Are The Message.

A Vain Man Can Never Be Altogether Rude. Desirous As He Is Of Pleasing, He Fashions His Manners After Those Of Others.

All That Is Noble Is In Itself Of A Quiet Nature, And Appears To Sleep Until It Is Aroused And Summoned Forth By Contrast.

It Is Said, That No One Is A Hero To Their Butler. The Reason Is, That It Requires A Hero To Recognize A Hero. The Butler, However, Will Probably Know Well How To Estimate His Equals.

Someday Someone Will Write A Pathology Of Experimental Physics And Bring To Light All Those Swindles Which Subvert Our Reason, Beguile Our Judgement And, What Is Worse, Stand In The Way Of Any Practical Progress. The Phenomena Must Be Freed Once And For All From Their Grim Torture Chamber Of Empiricism, Mechanism, And Dogmatism; They Must Be Brought Before The Jury Of Man's Common Sense.

Mediocrity Has No Greater Consolation Than In The Thought That Genius Is Not Immortal.

To The Man Of Thought Almost Nothing Is Really Ridiculous.

By Seeking And Blundering We Learn.

It Is Natural To Man To Regard Himself As The Final Cause Of Creation.

It Is Much Easier To Meet With Error Than To Find Truth; Error Is On The Surface, And Can Be More Easily Met With; Truth Is Hid In Great Depths, The Way To Seek Does Not Appear To All The World.

Willing Is Not Enough, We Must Do.

The Modern Age Has A False Sense Of Superiority, Because Of The Great Mass Of Data At Its Disposal. But The Valid Criterion Of Distinction Is Rather The Extent To Which Man Knows How To Form And Master The Material At His Command.

Over The Trackless Past, Somewhere, Lie The Lost Days Of Our Tropic Youth, Only Regained By Faith And Prayer, Only Recalled By Prayer And Plaint, Each Lost Day Has Its Patron Saint!

Ignorant Men Raise Questions That Wise Men Answered A Thousand Years Ago.

If You Inquire What People Are Like Here, I Must Answer, "the Same As Everywhere."

You Accuse A Woman Of Wavering Affections, But Don't Blame Her; She Is Just Looking For A Consistent Man.

Conscience Is The Virtue Of The Observers Not The Agents Of Action

Life Belongs To The Living, And He Who Lives Must Be Prepared For Changes.

The Greater Part Of All The Mischief In The World Arises From The Fact That Men Do Not Sufficiently Understand Their Own Aims.

The Eternal Feminine Draws Us On High.

A Joy Shared Is A Joy Doubled.

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?

How Can One Learn To Know Oneself? Never By Introspection, Rather By Action.

Knowing Oneself

Necessity Is Cruel, But It Is The Only Test Of Inward Strength. Every Fool May Live According To His Own Likings.

We Must Not Hope To Be Mowers, And To Gather The Ripe Gold Ears, Unless We Have First Been Sowers And Water The Furrows With Tears. It Is Not Just As We Take It, This Mystical World Of Ours, Life's Field Will Yield As We Make It A Harvest Of Thorns Or Of Flowers.

There Is No Better Deliverance From The World Than Through Art, And A Man Can Form No Surer Bond With It.

Blood Is A Very Special Juice.

Everything Is Hard Before It Is Easy.

I Don't Know A Greater Advantage, Than To Appreciate The Worth Of An Enemy.

It Is One Of Heaven's Best Gifts To Hold Such A Dear Creature In One's Arms.

To A Valet No Man Is A Hero.

Time Does Not Relinquish Its Rights, Either Over Human Beings Or Over Mountains.

Art Is Constitutive-the Artist Determines Beauty. He Does Not Take It Over.

He Who Does Not See The Whole World In His Friends, Does Not Deserve That The World Should Hear Of Him.

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Our Friends Show Us What We Can Do; Our Enemies Teach Us What We Must Do.

The Threshold Is The Place Of Expectation.

He Who Has Art And Science Also Has Religion, But Those Who Do Not Have Them Better Have Religion.

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Art Is A Mediator Of The Unspeakable.

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The Smallest Hair Throws Its Shadow. [ger., Das Kleinste Harr Wirft Seinen Schatten.]

The Thinking Person Has The Strange Characteristic To Like To Create A Fantasy In The Place Of The Unsolved Problem, A Fantasy That Stays With The Person Even When The Problem Has Been Solved And Truth Made Its Appearance.

Know Thyself? If I Knew Myself I Would Run Away.

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The Really Unhappy Person Is The One Who Leaves Undone What They Can Do, And Starts Doing What They Don't Understand; No Wonder They Come To Grief.

I Am Very Anxious To Please The Public, Particularly As It Lives And Lets Live.

Where I Cannot Be Moral, My Power Is Gone.

That Is The Way Of Youth And Life In General: That We Do Not Understand The Strategy Until After The Campaign Is Over.

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Instruction Does Much, But Encouragement Everything.

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If A Man Knows Where To Get Good Advice, It Is As Though He Could Supply It Himself.

If Children Grew Up According To Early Indications, We Should Have Nothing But Geniuses.

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I Know Nothing More Mocking Than A Devil That Despairs.

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Higher Yet And Higher Out Of Clouds And Night, Nearer Yet And Nearer Rising To The Light - Light, Serene And Holy Where My Soul May Rest, Purified And Lowly, Sanctified And Blest.

Music, In The Best Sense, Does Not Require Novelty; Nay, The Older It Is, And The More We Are Accustomed To It, The Greater Its Effect.

Unlike Grown Ups, Children Have Little Need To Deceive Themselves.

Gray Are All The Theories, But Green Is The Tree Of Life.

Nothing Shows A Man's Character More Than What He Laughs At.

There Is No Trifling With Nature; It Is Always True, Grave, And Severe; It Is Always In The Light, And The Faults And Errors Fall To Our Share. It Defies Incompetency, But Reveals Its Secrets To The Competent, The Truthful, And The Pure.

The Day Is Of Infinite Length For Him Who Knows How To Appreciate And Use It.

The Most Difficult Thing Is What Is Thought To Be The Simplest; To Really See The Things Which Are Before Your Eyes.

As Man Is, So Is His God. And Thus Is God Oft Strangely Odd.

Cursed Mammon Be, When He With Treasures To Restless Action Spurs Our Fate! Cursed When For Soft, Indulgent Leisures, He Lays For Us The Pillows Straight.

You Will Find The Most Pronounced Hatred Of Other Nations On The Lowest Cultural Levels. There Is, Though, A Level Where The Hatred Disappears Completely And Where One So To Speak Stands Above The Nations And Where One Experiences Fortune Or Misfortune Of A Neighboring Country As If They Had Happened To One's Own.

Disappear Completely

No Skill Or Art Is Needed To Grow Old; The Trick Is To Endure It.

Time Is A Strange Thing. It Is A Whimsical Tyrant, Which In Every Century Has A Different Face For All That One Says And Does.

Different Faces

There Is Nothing Worse Than Aggressive Stupidity.

It Matters Little Whether A Man Be Mathematically Or Philologically Or Artistically Cultivated, So He Be But Cultivated.

It Is Better For You To Suffer An Injustice Than For The World To Be Without Law. Therefore, Let Everyone Submit To The Law.

The Hardest Thing To See Is What Is In Front Of Your Eyes.

Character - In Things Great And Small - Is Indicated When A Man (or Person) Pursues With Sustained Follow-through What He Feels Himself Capable Of Doing.

Hope Enough To Remove All Anxious Fears Concerning The Future.

When Two People Are Really Happy About One Another One Can Generally Assume They Are Mistaken.

The Highest Happiness Of Man ... Is To Have Probed What Is Knowable And Quietly To Revere What Is Unknowable.

We All Walk In Mysteries. We Are Surrounded By An Atmosphere About Which We Still Know Nothing At All.

Do You Want To Live Happily? Travel With Two Bags, One For Giving, The Other For Receiving.

Sometimes I Don't Understand How Another Can Love Her, Is Allowed To Love Her, Since I Love Her So Completely Myself, So Intensely, So Fully, Grasp Nothing, Know Nothing, Have Nothing But Her!

People Are Always Talking About Originality, But What Do They Mean? As Soon As We Are Born, The World Begins To Work Upon Us, And This Goes On To The End.

Colors Are Light's Suffering And Joy

Love And Desire Are The Spirit's Wings To Great Deeds.

Whoever Makes It A Rule To Test Action By Thought, Thought By Action, Cannot Falter, And If He Does, Will Soon Find His Way Back To The Right Road.

Many Hammer All Over The Wall And Believe That With Each Blow They Hit The Nail On The Head.

Take Care Of Your Body With Steadfast Fidelity.

Mystery Is Truth's Dancing Partner.

The Greatest Piece Of Folly Is That Every Man Thinks Himself Compelled To Hand Down What People Think They Have Known.

To Blow Is Not To Play On The Flute; You Must Move The Fingers. [ger., Blasen Ist Nicht Floten, Ihr Musst Die Finger Bewegen.]

What Is Hardest Of All? That Which Seems Most Simple: To See With Your Eyes What Is Before Your Eyes.

Death Is A Commingling Of Eternity With Time; In The Death Of A Good Man, Eternity Is Seen Looking Through Time.

For I Have Been A Man, And That Means To Have Been A Fighter.

Tolerance Should Really Be Only A Temporary Attitude; It Must Lead To Recognition. To Tolerate Means To Offend.

Mathematics Can Remove No Prejudices And Soften No Obduracy. It Has No Influence In Sweetening The Bitter Strife Of Parties, And In The Moral World Generally Its Action Is Perfectly Null.

Sin Writes Histories, Goodness Is Silent. [ger., Das Uebel Macht Eine Geschichte Und Das Gute Keine.]

My Poor Head Is In Such A Whirl, My Mind Is All In Bits.

Common Sense Is The Genius Of Humanity.

It Is A Maxim Of Wise Government To Treat People Not As They Should Be But As They Actually Are.

With Little Art, Clear Wit And Sense Suggest Their Own Delivery.

But One Must Know Where One Stands, And Where The Others Wish To Go.

There Is Repetition Everywhere, And Nothing Is Found Only Once In The World.

There Is Nothing Insignificant In The World. It All Depends On How One Looks At It.

Insignificant Things

Beware Of A Man Of One Book.

For What One Has In Black And White, One Can Carry Home In Comfort.

Black And White

The Style Of An Author Is A Faithful Copy Of His Mind.

Battle Not With Monsters, For Then You Become One.

Courage And Modesty Are The Most Unequivocal Of Virtues, For They Are Of A Kind That Hypocrisy Cannot Imitate; They Too Have This Quality In Common, That They Are Expressed By The Same Color.

Take Life Too Seriously, And What Is It Worth? If The Morning Wake Us To No New Joys, If The Evening Bring Us Not The Hope Of New Pleasure, Is It Worthwhile To Dress And Undress?

To Be Sure, A Good Work Of Art Can And Will Have Moral Consequences, But To Demand Of The Artists Moral Intentions, Means Ruiningtheir Craft.

God Made Man Simple, But How He Changed And Got Complicated Is Hard To Say.

One Alone Does Not Help, But Rather He Who Unites With Many At The Right Moment.

Even Dirt Glitters When The Sun Is Shining Upon It

The History Of Knowledge Is A Great Fugue In Which The Voices Of The Nations One After The Other Emerge.

The Whole History Of The Christian Church Is A Mixture Of Errors And Violence.

Nature Is Beneficent. I Praise Her And All Her Works. She Is Silent And Wise. She Is Cunning, But For Good Ends. She Has Brought Me Here And Will Also Lead Me Away. She May Scold Me, But She Will Not Hate Her Work. I Trust Her.

The Misery That Oppresses You Lies Not In Your Profession But In Yourself! What Man In The World Would Not Find His Situation Intolerable If He Chooses A Craft, An Art, Indeed Any Form Of Life, Without Experiencing An Inner Calling? Whoever Is Born With A Talent, Or To A Talent, Must Surely Find In That The Most Pleasing Of Occupations! Everything On This Earth Has Its Difficult Sides! Only Some Inner Drive - Pleasure, Love - Can Help Us Overcome Obstacles, Prepare A Path, And Lift As Out Of The Narrow Circle In Which Others Tread Out Their Anguished, Miserable Existences!

Accepting Good Advice Means Nothing Other Than To Strengthen One's Own Ability.

Every Great Idea Exerts, On First Appearing, A Tyrannical Influence: Hence, The Advantages It Brings Are Turned All Too Soon Into Disadvantages.

Hatred Is Active Displeasure, Envy Passive. We Need Not Wonder That Envy Turns To Soon To Hatred.

Over All The Mountain Tops Is Peace. In All Treetops You Perceive Scarcely A Breath. The Little Birds In The Forest Are Silent. Wait Then; Soon, You Too, Will Have Peace.

Miracle Is The Pet Child Of Faith.

Assuredly There Is No More Lovely Worship Of God Than That For Which No Image Is Required, But Which Springs Up In Our Breast Spontaneously When Nature Speaks To The Soul, And The Soul Speaks To Nature Face To Face.

I Always Had An Aversion To Your Apostles Of Freedom; Each But Sought For Himself Freedom To Do What He Liked.

A Great Scholar Is Seldom A Great Philosopher.

Great Philosophers

Love Can Do Much, But Duty More.

Man Believes Himself Always Greater Than He Is, And Is Esteemed Less Than He Is Worth.

There Are Three Classes Of Readers; Some Enjoy Without Judgment; Others Judge Without Enjoyment; And Some There Are Who Judge While They Enjoy, And Enjoy While They Judge. The Latter Class Reproduces The Work Of Art On Which It Is Engaged. Its Numbers Are Very Small.

Win For Yourself That Which Your Fathers Have Won.

He Who Is Wise Puts Aside All Claims Which May Dissipate His Attention, And Confining Himself To One Branch Excels In That.

Look At A Man The Way He Is And He Only Becomes Worse, But Look At Him As If He Were What He Could Be, Then He Becomes What He Should Be.

A Correct Answer Is Like An Affectionate Kiss.

Slap In The Face

Theories Are Usually The Over-hasty Efforts Of An Impatient Understanding That Would Gladly Be Rid Of Phenomena, And So Puts In Their Place Pictures, Notions, Nay, Often Mere Words.

If You Have Science And Art, You Also Have Religion; But If You Don't Have Them, You Better Have Religion.

Truth Must Be Repeated Again And Again, Because Error Is Constantly Being Preached Round About.

Again And Again

To Tremble Before Anticipated Evils Is To Bemoan What Thou Hast Never Lost.

Few Men Have Imagination Enough For Reality.

It Is Delivery That Makes The Orators Success.

Every Solution Of A Problem Is A New Problem.

A Person Places Themselves On A Level With The Ones They Praise.

A Man Does Not Mind Being Blamed For His Faults, And Being Punished For Them, And He Patiently Suffers Much For Them; But He Becomes Impatient If He Is Required To Give Them Up.

The Sun Had, In The Meanwhile, Sunk Behind The Ettersberg. We Felt In The Wood The Chill Of The Evening, And Drove All The Quicker To Wiemar, And To Goethe's House. Goethe Urged Me To Go In With Him For A While, And I Did So. He Was In An Extremely Engaging Mood. He Talked A Great Deal About His Theory Of Colors, And Of His Obstinate Opponents; Remarking That He Was Sure That He Had Done Something In This Science.

How Often Do I Lull My Seething Blood To Rest, For You Have Never Seen Anything So Unsteady, So Uncertain, As This Heart.

Properly Speaking, Such Work Is Never Finished; One Must Declare It So When, According To Time And Circumstances, One Has Done One's Best.

The Soul That Sees Beauty May Sometimes Walk Alone.

Girls We Love For What They Are; Young Men For What They Promise To Be.

We Can Redeem Anyone Who Strives Unceasingly.

If The Mass Of People Hesitate To Act, Strike With Swiftly And With Boldness, The Brave Heart That Understands And Seizes Opportunity Can Everything.

Procrastination

I Am Not Omniscient, But I Know A Lot.

Error Is To Truth As Sleep Is To Waking. I Have Observed That One Turns, As If Refreshed, From Error Back To Truth.

Those Who Have No Hope For A Future Life Are Already Dead For The Present One.

Until One Is Committed, There Is Hesitancy, The Chance To Draw Back, Always Ineffectiveness. Concerning All Acts Of Initiation - Creation - There Is One Elementary Truth, The Ignorance Of Which Kills Countless Ideas And Splendid Plans.

Too Rigid Scruples Are Concealed Pride.

Everyone Is Deceived In His Hopes, Cheated In His Expectations.

Everything Is Both Simpler Than We Can Imagine And More Entangled Than We Can Conceive.

Clever People Are Always The Best Conversations Lexicon.

Ill-humor Is Nothing More Than An Inward Feeling Of Our Own Want Of Merit, A Dissatisfaction With Ourselves Which Is Always United With An Envy That Foolish Vanity Excites.

The Real Scholar Learns How To Evolve The Unknown From The Known, And Draws Near The Master.

He Only Fears Men Who Does Not Know Them, And He Who Avoids Them Will Soon Misjudge Them.

The Universal Subjugator, The Commonplace.

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