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Men Are So Inclined To Content Themselves With What Is Commonest; The Spirit And The Senses So Easily Grow Dead To The Impressions Of The Beautiful And Perfect, That Every One Should Study, By All Methods, To Nourish In His Mind The Faculty Of Feeling These Things. ...for This Reason, One Ought Every Day At Least, To Hear A Little Song, Read A Good Poem, See A Fine Picture, And, If It Were Possible, To Speak A Few Reasonable Words.

-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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Men Are So Inclined

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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Men Are So Inclined To Content Themselves With What Is Commonest; The Spirit And The Senses So Easily Grow Dead To The Impressions Of The Beautiful And Perfect, That Every One Should Study, By All Methods, To Nourish In His Mind The Faculty Of Feeling These Things. ...for This Reason, One Ought Every Day At Least, To Hear A Little Song, Read A Good Poem, See A Fine Picture, And, If It Were Possible, To Speak A Few Reasonable Words.

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It Is Only In Misery That We Recognize The Hand Of God Leading Good Men To Good.

Such Is The Frailty Of Man That Even Where He Makes The Truest And Most Forcible Impression In The Memory, In The Heart Of His Beloved, There Also He Must Perish.

We Have Time Enough If We But Use It Aright

To Have A Positive Religion Is Not Necessary. To Be In Harmony With Yourself And The Universe Is What Counts, And This Is Possible Without Positive And Specific Formulation In Words.

Beauty Is Everywhere A Welcome Guest.

Life's Objective Is Life Itself.

All Sects Seem To Me To Be Right In What They Assert, And Wrong In What They Deny.

There Is Not A Single Outward Mark Of Courtesy That Does Not Have A Deep Moral Basis.

Water Its Living Strength First Shows, When Obstacles Its Course Oppose.

We Usually Lose Today, Because There Has Been A Yesterday, And Tomorrow Is Coming.

Every Form Correctly Seen Is Beautiful

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

Patriotism Ruins History.

None Are More Hopelessly Enslaved Than Those Who Falsely Believe They Are Free.

There Is Nothing In The World More Pitiable Than An Irresolute Man, Oscillating Between Two Feelings, Who Would Willingly Unite The Two And Who Does Not Perceive That Nothing Can Unite Them

Everything That We Call Invention Or Discovery In The Higher Sense Of The Word Is The Serious Exercise And Activity Of An Original Feeling For Truth, Which, After A Long Course Of Silent Cultivation, Suddenly Flashes Out Into Fruitful Knowledge.

A Flippant, Frivolous Man May Ridicule Others, May Controvert Them, Scorn Them; But He Who Has Any Respect For Himself Seems To Have Renounced The Right Of Thinking Meanly Of Others.

On Top Of The World, Or In The Depths Of Despair.

Taste Is Only To Be Educated By Contemplation, Not Of The Tolerably Good But Of The Truly Excellent.

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

Insignificant Things

All Of Us Have Life; Few Of Us Have An Idea Of It.

One's Roused By This, Another Finds That Fit: Each Loves The Play For What He Brings To It.

The World Is So Empty If One Thinks Only Of Mountains, Rivers And Cities; But To Know Someone Who Thinks And Feels With Us, And Who, Though Distant, Is Close To Us In Spirit, This Makes The Earth For Us An Inhabited Garden.

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

Errors Belong To Libraries; Truth, To The Human Mind.

If You've Never Eaten While Crying You Don T Know What Life Tastes Like.

Hatred Is Something Peculiar. You Will Always Find It Strongest And Most Violent Where There Is The Lowest Degree Of Culture.

I Look Upon All Four Gospels As Thoroughly Genuine, For There Shines Forth From Them The Reflected Splendor Of A Sublimity Proceeding From Jesus Christ.

Fret Not Over The Irretrievable, But Ever Act As If Thy Life Were Just Begun.

Those Who Hope For No Other Life Are Dead Even For This.

Some People Spend The Day In Complaining Of A Headache, And The Night In Drinking The Wine That Gives It.

Most Pioneers Are At The Mercy Of Doubt At The Beginning, Whether Of Their Worth, Of Their Theories, Or Of The Whole Enigmatic Field In Which They Labour.

A Man Avails Himself Of The Truth So Long As It Is Serviceable; But He Seizes On What Is False With A Passionate Eloquence As Soon As He Can Make A Momentary Use Of It.

Wouldst Thou Ever Roam Abroad? See, What Is Good Lies By Thy Side. Only Learn To Catch Happiness, For Happiness Is Ever By You.

Gifts Come From Above In Their Own Peculiar Forms. [ger., Die Gaben Kommen Von Oben Herab, In Ihren Eignen Gestalten.]

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

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

Be Always Resolute With The Present Hour. Every Moment Is Of Infinite Value.

I Will Be Lord Over Myself.

The Bad Thing Is That Thinking About Thought Doesn't Help At All; One Has To Have It From Nature So That The Good Ideas Appear Before Us Like Free Children Of God Calling To Us: Here We Are.

Deny Yourself! You Must Deny Yourself! That Is The Song That Never Ends.

Blood Is A Juice Of Rarest Quality. [ger., Blut Ist Ein Ganz Beondrer Saft.]

Children, Like Dogs, Have So Sharp And Fine A Scent That They Detect And Hunt Out Everything--the Bad Before All The Rest. They Also Know Well Enough How This Or That Friend Stands With Their Parents; And As They Practice No Dissimulation Whatever, They Serve As Excellent Barometers By Which To Observe The Degree Of Favor Or Disfavor At Which We Stand With Their Parents.

Wer Fremde Sprachen Nicht Kennt, Weiss Nichts Von Seiner Eigenen.he Who Is Ignorant Of Foreign Languages, Knows Not His Own.

Foreign Language

To Make A Young Couple Love Each Other, It Is Only Necessary To Oppose And Separate Them.

Love Each Other

You Are, When All Is Done-just What You Are.

Go To The Place Where The Thing You Wish To Know Is Native; Your Best Teacher Is There. Where The Thing You Wish To Know Is So Dominant That You Must Breathe Its Very Atmosphere, There Teaching Is Moat Thorough, And Learning Is Most Easy. You Acquire A Language Most Readily In The Country Where It Is Spoken; You Study Mineralogy Boat Among Miners; And So With Everything Else.

Sin Writes Histories, Goodness Is Silent.

To Have Seen Italy Without Having Seen Sicily Is To Not Have Seen Italy At All, For Sicily Is The Clue To Everything.

Whatever Nature Undertakes, She Can Only Accomplish It In A Sequence. She Never Makes A Leap.

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.

Hell Begins The Day That God Grants You The Vision To See All That You Could Have Done, Should Have Done, And Would Have Done, But Did Not Do.

Secrecy Has Many Advantages, For When You Tell Someone The Purpose Of Any Object Right Away, They Often Think There Is Nothing To It.

Each Has His Own Happiness In His Hands, As The Artist Handles The Rude Clay He Seeks To Reshape It Into A Figure; Yet It Is The Same With This Art As With All Others: Only The Capacity For It Is Innate; The Art Itself Must Be Learned And Painstakingly Practiced.

In Nature We Never See Anything Isolated, But Everything In Connection With Something Else Which Is Before It, Beside It, Under It And Over It.

Good Children's Literature Appeals Not Only To The Child In The Adult, But To The Adult In The Child.

There Are People Who Make No Mistakes Because They Never Wish To Do Anything Worth Doing.

If Only These Treasures Were Not So Fragile As They Are Precious And Beautiful.

Great Endowments Often Announce Themselves In Youth In The Form Of Singularity And Awkwardness.

To Venture An Opinion Is Like Moving A Piece At Chess: It May Be Taken, But It Forms The Beginning Of A Game That Is Won.

The Man Who Acts Never Has Any Conscience; No One Has Any Conscience But The Man Who Thinks

Let Us Live, While We Are Alive!

A Genuine Work Of Art Usually Displeases At First Sight, As It Suggests A Deficiency In The Spectator.

Neither Art Thou The Man To Catch The Fiend And Hold Him! [ger., Du Bist Noch Nicht Der Mann Den Teufel Festzuhalten.

Truth Is A Torch, But A Huge One, And So It Is Only With Blinking Eyes What We All Of Us Try To Get Past It, In Actual Terror Of Being Burnt.

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.

Give Shape, Artist! Don't Talk! Your Poem Be But A Breath.

Be Generous With Kindly Words, Especially About Those Who Are Absent.

We Are Our Own Aptest Deceiver.

All Perishable Is But An Allegory.

Where Confidence Is Wanting, The Most Beautiful Flower In The Garland Of Love Is Missing.

We Eagerly Get Hold Of A Law That Serves As A Weapon To Our Passions.

It Is In Human Nature To Relax, When Not Compelled By Personal Advantage Or Disadvantage.

Sceptics Are Yet The Most Credulous.

One Always Has Time Enough, If One Will Apply It Well.

It Is A Great Error To Take Oneself For More Than One Is, Or For Less Than One Is Worth.

If The Word Is Not Dead When It Reaches The Hearer, He Murders It At Once By A Contradiction, A Stipulation, A Condition, A Digression, An Interruption, And All The Thousand Tricks Of Conversation.

I Examine My Own Being, And Find There A World, But A World Rather Of Imagination And Dim Desires, Than Of Distinctness And Living Power. Then Everything Swims Before My Senses, And I Smile And Dream While Pursuing My Way Through The World.

In The End We Are All Separate: Our Stories, No Matter How Similar, Come To A Fork And Diverge. We Are Drawn To Each Other Because Of Our Similarities, But It Is Our Differences We Must Learn To Respect.

I Wait For The Morning Of My Tears

He Who Serves The Public Is A Poor Animal; He Worries Himself To Death And No One Thanks Him For It.

It Is A Mistake For A Taciturn, Serious-minded Woman To Marry A Jovial Man, But Not For A Serious-minded Man To Marry A Lighthearted Woman.

Every Man Has Enough Power Left To Carry Out That Of Which He Is Convinced.

For To Give Is The Business Of The Rich. [lat., Denn Geben Ist Sache Des Reichen.]

Age Childish Makes, They Say, But 'tis Not True; We're Only Genuine Children Still In Age's Season. [ger., Das Alter Macht Nicht Kindisch, Wie Man Spricht, Es Findet Uns Nur Noch Als Wahre Kinder.]

There Is No Past We Can Bring Back By Longing For It. There Is Only An Eternal Now That Builds And Creates Out Of The Past Something New And Better.

Men Are Joined By Conviction, Sundered By Opinion.

If Society Gives Up The Right To Impose The Death Penalty, Then Self-help Will Appear Again And Personal Vendettas Will Be Around The Corner.

After Fifteen Minutes Nobody Looks At A Rainbow.

The Man Who Masters Himself Is Delivered From The Force That Binds All Creatures.

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.

Sacrificing Everything

Those That Are Firm In Their Will Mold The World To Themselves.

Every Second Is Of Infinite Value.

It Is In The Half Fools And The Half Wise That The Greatest Danger Lies.

The Spirit From Which We Act Is The Principal Matter.

I Am A Part Of The Part That At First Was All, Part Of The Darkness That Gave Birth To The Light, That Supercilious Light Which Now Disputes With Mother Night Her Ancient Rank And Space, And Yet Cannot Succeed; No Matter How It Struggles, It Sticks To Matter And Can't Get Free. Light Flows From Substance, Makes It Beautiful.

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.

The Highest Goal That Man Can Achieve Is Amazement.

Fortunately, We Can Take In Only So Much Misfortune; What Exceeds That Limit Either Destroys Us Or Leaves Us Indifferent.

Take Care Of Your Body With Steadfast Fidelity.

We're Really Up Against It, We Poor Women: A Bachelor's A Hard Thing To Convert

When You Lose Interest In Anything, You Also Lose The Memory For It.

Tomorrow Sees Undone, What Happens Not To-day; Still Forward Press, Nor Never Tire! The Possible, With Steadfast Trust, Resolve Should Be By The Forelock Grasp. Then She Will Ne'er Let Go Her Clasp, And Labors On, Because She Must.

Die Zeit Ist Selbst Ein Element. Time Is Itself An Element.

The Sum Which Two Married People Owe To One Another Defies Calculation. It Is An Infinite Debt, Which Can Only Be Discharged Through All Eternity.

Nothing Is Good For A Nation But That Which Arises From Its Own Core And Its Own General Wants, Without Apish Imitation Of Another.

To Like Things Like, Whatever One May Ail; There Is Certain Help.

If You Want A Wise Answer, Ask A Reasonable Question.

Questions And Answers

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

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

When Two Men Quarrel, Who Owns The Cooler Head Is The More To Blame.

The Traveler Was Active; He Went Strenuously In Search Of People, Of Adventure, Of Experience. The Tourist Is Passive.

The True Poet Is Called To Take In The Splendor Of The World And For That Reason Will Always Be Inclined To Praise Rather Than Tofind Fault.

If The World Does Improve On The Whole, Yet Youth Must Always Begin Anew, And Go Through The Stages Of Culture From The Beginning.

The Mark Of Highest Originality Lies In The Ability To Develop A Familiar Idea So Fruitfully That It Would Seem No One Else Would Ever Have Discovered So Much To Be Hidden In It.

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.

To Me The External Existence Of My Soul Is Proved From My Idea Of Activity. If I Work Incessantly Until My Death, Nature Will Give Me Another Form Of Existence When The Present Can No Longer Sustain My Spirit.

A Man Who Is Ignorant Of Foreign Languages Is Also Ignorant Of His Own Language.

Wisdom Is Found Only In Truth.

Waste Not A Day In Vain Digression; With Resolute, Courageous Trust Seek Every Possible Impression And Make It Firmly Your Posession You'll Then Work On Because You Must.

To Be Active Is The Primary Vocation Of Man.

Mannerism Always Wants To Be Finished And Doesn't Enjoy The Process. Genuine, Truly Great Talent, However, Finds Its Greatest Satisfaction In The Production.

He Who Moves Not Forward, Goes Backward.

One Must Keep Repeating The Truth.

How Marvelous, Wide And Broad Is My Inheritance! Time Is My Property, My Estate Is Time.

The Moment One Definitely Commits Oneself, Then Providence Moves, Too. All Sorts Of Things Occur To Help One That Would Never Have Otherwise Occurred...unforeseen Incidents And Meetings And Material Assistance, Which No Man Could Have Dreamed Would Have Come His Way.

Instruction Does Much, But Encouragement Everything.

The Shudder Of Awe Is Humanity's Highest Faculty, Even Though This World Is Forever Altering Its Values.

What Is Fruitful Alone Is True.

The Misfortune In The State Is, That Nobody Can Enjoy Life In Peace, But That Everybody Must Govern; And In Art, That Nobody Will Enjoy What Has Been Produced, But That Every One Wants To Reproduce On His Own Account.

Nature! We Are Enveloped And Embraced By Her, Incapable Of Emerging From Her And Incapable Of Entering Her More Deeply. Unbidden And Unwarned, She Receives Us Into The Circuits Of Her Dance, Drifting Onward With Us Herself, Until We Grow Tired And Drop From Her Arms.

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.

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

The Proper Place For Liberality Is In The Realm Of The Emotions.

If Your Treat An Individual... As If He Were What He Ought To Be And Could Be, He Will Become What He Ought To Be And Could Be.

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

If You Are To Accomplish All That One Demands Of You, You Must Overestimate Your Own Worth.

It Is Said That No Man Is A Hero To His Valet. That Is Because A Hero Can Be Recognized Only By A Hero.

Look Closely At Those Who Patronize You. Half Are Unfeeling, Half Untaught.

Children, Love One Another, And If That Is Not Possible-at Least Try To Put Up With One Another.

Love One Another

Plunge Boldly Into The Thick Of Life, And Seize It Where You Will, It Is Always Interesting.

Superstition Is Rooted In A Much Deeper And More Sensitive Layer Of The Psyche Than Skepticism.

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!

I Have Come To The Frightening Conclusion That I Am The Decisive Element. It Is My Personal Approach That Creates The Climate. It Is My Daily Mood That Makes The Weather....in All Situations, It Is My Response That Decides Whether A Crisis Is Escalated Or De-escalated, And A Person Is Humanized Or Is Dehumanized.

All Theory, My Friend, Is Grey, But Green Is Life's Glad Golden Tree.

Marriage Is The Beginning And Pinnacle Of Civilization.

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

No Prudent Antagonist Thinks Light Of His Adversaries.

Life Is Not Anything, But An Opportunity For Something.

Magic Is Believing In Yourself, If You Can Do That, You Can Make Anything Happen.

Who Never Ate His Bread In Sorrow, Who Never Spent The Darksome Hours Weeping, And Watching For The Morrow,- He Knows You Not, Ye Heavenly Powers.

He Is Happiest, Be He King Or Peasant, Who Finds Peace In His Home.

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

English Plays, Atrocious In Content, Absurd In Form, Objectionable In Action, Execrable Englishtheatre.

I Have Found Among My Papers A Sheet . . . In Which I Call Architecture Frozen Music.

One Never Goes So Far As When One Doesn't Know Where One Is Going.

One Would Give Generous Alms If One Had The Eyes To See The Beauty Of A Cupped Receiving Hand.

For Many People, One Of The Most Frustrating Aspects Of Life Is Not Being Able To Understand Other People's Behavior.

Excellence Is Rarely Found, More Rarely Valued.

We Must Not Take The Faults Of Our Youth With Us Into Old Age, For Age Brings Along Its Own Defects.

Nature Knows No Pause In Progress And Development, And Attaches Her Curse On All Inaction.

What Is The Freedom Of The Most Free? To Do What Is Right!

One Says A Lot In Vain, Refusing; The Other Mainly Hears The "no."

I Could Never Have Known So Well How Paltry Men Are, And How Little They Care For Really High Aims, If I Had Not Tested Them By My Scientific Researches. Thus I Saw That Most Men 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 Is Never Satisfied With The Portrait Of A Person That One Knows.

Piety, Like Nobility, Has Its Aristocracy.

True Happiness Springs From Moderation.

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

One Never Goes Further Than When They Do Not Know Where They Are Going.

There Is Nothing Outside Of Us That Is Not At The Same Time In Us, And As The External World Has Its Colors The Eye, Too, Has Colors.

Science Has Been Seriously Retarded By The Study Of What Is Not Worth Knowing And Of What Is Not Knowable.

To Hard Necessity Ones Will And Fancy Must Conform.

Nature Has Neither Core Nor Skin: She’s Both At Once Outside And In.

The Brilliant Passes, Like The Dew At Morn; The True Endures, For Ages Yet Unborn.

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

Precaution Is Better Than Cure.

No One Would Talk Much In Society If They Knew How Often They Misunderstood Others.

I Call Architecture Frozen Music.

Insofar As He Makes Use Of His Healthy Senses, Man Himself Is The Best And Most Exact Scientific Instrument Possible. The Greatest Misfortune Of Modern Physics Is That Its Experiments Have Been Set Apart From Man, As It Were, Physics Refuses To Recognize Nature In Anything Not Shown By Artificial Instruments, And Even Uses This As A Measure Of Its Accomplishments.

Everywhere, We Learn Only From Those Whom We Love.

He Who Is And Remains True To Himself And To Others Has The Most Attractive Quality Of The Greatest Talent.

Art Is A Mediator Of The Unspeakable.

Still This Planet's Soil For Noble Deeds Grants Scope Abounding.

Character Develops Itself In The Stream Of Life.

The Best Benefit We Derive From History Is The Enthusiasm It Excites.

Like The Star That Shines Afar, Without Haste And Without Rest, Let Each One Wheel With Steady Sway Round The Task That Rules The Day, And Do Their Best.

Everything That We Encounter Leaves Traces Behind. Everything Contributes Imperceptibly To Our Education

True Works Of Art Contain Their Own Theory And Give Us The Measurement According To Which We Should Judge Them.

My Days Are As Happy As Those Reserved By God For His Elect; And Whatever Be My Fate Hereafter, I Can Never Say That I Have Not Tasted Joy— The Purest Joy Of Life.

A Man Would Create Another Man If One Did Not Already Exist, But A Woman Might Live An Eternity Without Even Thinking Of Reproducing Her Own Sex.

Few Are Open To Conviction, But The Majority Of Men Are Open To Persuasion

I Can Tell You, Honest Friend, What To Believe: Believe Life; It Teaches Better That Book Or Orator.

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.

To Know Where A Thing Is We Must Have Found It.

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.

Nobody, They Say, Is A Hero To His Valet. Of Course; For A Man Must Be A Hero To Understand A Hero. The Valet, I Dare Say, Has Great Respect For Some Person Of His Own Stamp.

What Is The Universal? The Single Case. What Is The Particular? Millions Of Cases.

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

Here Too It’s Masquerade, I Find: As Everywhere, The Dance Of Mind. I Grasped A Lovely Masked Procession, And Caught Things From A Horror Show… I’d Gladly Settle For A False Impression, If It Would Last A Little Longer, Though.

There Is A Politeness Of The Heart; This Is Closely Allied To Love.

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