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Pain And Pleasure, Good And Evil, Come To Us From Unexpected Sources. It Is Not There Where We Have Gathered Up Our Brightest Hopes, That The Dawn Of Happiness Breaks. It Is Not There Where We Have Glanced Our Eye With Affright, That We Find The Deadliest Gloom. What Should This Teach Us? To Bow To The Great And Only Source Of Light, And Live Humbly And With Confiding Resignation.

-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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Pain And Pleasure, Good

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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Pain And Pleasure, Good And Evil, Come To Us From Unexpected Sources. It Is Not There Where We Have Gathered Up Our Brightest Hopes, That The Dawn Of Happiness Breaks. It Is Not There Where We Have Glanced Our Eye With Affright, That We Find The Deadliest Gloom. What Should This Teach Us? To Bow To The Great And Only Source Of Light, And Live Humbly And With Confiding Resignation.

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We Are Accustomed To See Men Deride What They Do Not Understand, And Snarl At The Good And Beautiful Because It Lies Beyond Their Sympathies

As Soon As Any One Belongs To A Narrow Creed In Science, Every Unprejudiced And True Perception Is Gone.

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

Age Merely Shows What Children We Remain.

Let Mental Culture Go On Advancing, Let The Natural Sciences Progress In Even Greater Extent And Depth, And The Human Mind Widen Itself As Much As It Desires: Beyond The Elevation And Moral Culture Of Christianity, As It Shines Forth In The Gospels, It Will Not Go.

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

Man Supposes That He Directs His Life And Governs His Actions, When His Existence Is Irretrievably Under The Control Of Destiny

But What Is Your Duty? What The Day Demands. [ger., Was Aber Ist Deine Pflicht? Die Forderung Des Tages.]

Commonplaceness, The Surrender To The Average, That Good Which Is Not Bad But Still The Enemy Of The Best - That Is Our Besetting Danger.

Confronted By Outstanding Merit, There Is No Way Of Saving One's Ego Except By Love

One Must Be Something, In Order To Do Something.

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.

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

Humor Is One Of The Elements Of Genius--admirable As An Adjunct; But As Soon As It Becomes Dominant, Only A Surrogate For Genius.

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

Nothing Is Worse Than Active Ignorance.

Woman Is Mistress Of The Art Of Completely Imbittering The Life Of The Person On Whom She Depends.

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.

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."

What Is Fruitful Alone Is True.

A Useless Life Is An Early Death.

The Work Of Art May Have A Moral Effect, But To Demand Moral Purpose From The Artist Is To Make Him Ruin His Work.

To Make Converts Is The Natural Ambition Of Everyone.

It Is Sometimes Essential For A Husband And A Wife To Quarrel - They Get To Know Each Other Better.

The Man Who Occupies The First Place Seldom Plays The Principal Part.

The World Is For Thousands A Freak Show; The Images Flicker Past And Vanish; The Impressions Remain Flat And Unconnected In The Soul. Thus They Are Easily Led By The Opinions Of Others, Are Content To Let Their Impressions Be Shuffled And Rearranged And Evaluated Differently.

Faust: Who Holds The Devil, Let Him Hold Him Well, He Hardly Will Be Caught A Second Time.

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

Be Above It! Make The World Serve Your Purpose, But Do Not Serve It.

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

Does Not Man Lack The Force At The Very Point Where He Needs It Most? And When He Soars Upward In Joy, Or Sinks Down In Suffering, Is Not Checked In Both, Is He Not Returned Again To The Dull, Cold Sphere Of Awareness, Just When He Was Longing To Lose Himself In The Fullness Of The Infinite.

Art Is A Mediator Of The Unspeakable.

He Who Knows No Foreign Languages Knows Nothing Of His Own.

Humans Fear Reason, But They Ought To Fear Stupidity- For Reason Can Be Hard, But Stupidity Can Be Fatal.

We Gladly Put Antiquity Above Our Age But Not Posterity. Only A Father Doesn't Begrudge His Son's Talent.

The Mortal Race Is Far Too Weak Not To Grow Dizzy On Unwonted Brights.

Anecdotes And Maxims Are Rich Treasures To The Man Of The World, For He Knows How To Introduce The Former At Fit Place In Conversation.

Higher Aims Are In Themselves More Valuable, Even If Unfulfilled, Than Lower Ones Quite Attained.

Whatever You Can Do Or Dream, Begin It.

Not Art And Science Only, But Patience Will Be Required For The Work.

Art And Science

The Important Thing In Life Is To Have A Great Aim, And The Determination To Attain It.

Whoever Would Understand The Poet Must Go Into The Poet's Country. [ger., Wer Den Dichter Will Verstehen Muss In Dichters Lande Gehen.]

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

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.

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

People Can Only Live With Their Equals, And Not Even With Them; For In The Long Run They Cannot Tolerate That Someone Is Their Equal.

Alas! How Much There Is In Education, And In Our Social Institutions, To Prepare Us And Our Children For Insanity.

If Everyone Sweeps Before His Own Front Door, Then The Street Is Clean.

What Is Not Started Today Is Never Finished Tomorrow.

We Blame Equally Him Who Is Too Proud To Put A Proper Value On His Own Merit And Him Who Prizes Too Highly His Spurious Worth.

It Would Be A Lowly Art That Allowed Itself To Be Understood All At Once.

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.

He Who Does Not Stretch Himself According To The Coverlet Finds His Feet Uncovered.

Animals, We Have Been Told, Are Taught By Their Organs. Yes, I Would Add, And So Are Men, But Men Have This Further Advantage That They Can Also Teach Their Organs In Return.

True Happiness Springs From Moderation.

Were The Eye Not Of The Sun, How Could We Behold The Light? If God's Might And Ours Were Not As One, How Could His Work Enchant Our Sight?

Mannerism Is Always Longing To Have Done, And Has No True Enjoyment In Work. A Genuine, Really Great Talent, On The Other Hand, Has Its Greatest Happiness In Execution.

Every Person Above The Ordinary Has A Certain Mission That They Are Called To Fulfill.

Let There Be Truth Between Us.

Seldom In The Business And Transactions Of Ordinary Life, Do We Find The Sympathy We Want.

Where I Cannot Be Moral, My Power Is Gone.

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

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

A Man Who Cannot Command Himself Will Always Be A Slave.

Those Only Obtain Love, For The Most Part, Who Seek It Not.

We're Only Really Thinking When We Can't Think Out Fully What We Are Really Thinking About!

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

Everything We Do Has A Result. But That Which Is Right And Prudent Does Not Always Lead To Good, Nor The Contrary To What Is Bad.

The Day Is Committed To Error And Floundering; Success And Achievement Are Matters Of Long Range.

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.

Everything Is Hard Before It Is Easy.

They Teach In Academies Far Too Many Things, And Far Too Much That Is Useless.

Men's Prejudices Rest Upon Their Character For The Time Being And Cannot Be Overcome, As Being Part And Parcel Of Themselves. Neither Evidence Nor Common Sense Nor Reason Has The Slightest Influence Upon Them.

Let Everyone Sweep In Front Of His Own Door, And The Whole World Will Be Clean.

The Dangers Of Life Are Infinite, And Among Them Is Safety.

One Man's Word Is No Man's Word; We Should Quietly Hear Both Sides.

The World Only Goes Forward Because Of Those Who Oppose It.

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

Normally, The Sciences Distance Themselves From Life And The Return To It Via A Detour.

If In The Infinite You Want To Stride, Just Walk In The Finite To Every Side.

As In Rome There Is, Apart From The Romans, A Population Of Statues, So Apart From This Real World There Is A World Of Illusion, Almost More Potent, In Which Most Men Live.

Association With Women Is The Basis Of Good Manners.

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!

Aptitudes Are Assumed, They Should Become Accomplishments. That Is The Purpose Of All Education.

Over All The Mountain Tops Is Peace.

Courage Is The Commitment To Begin Without Any Guarantee Of Success.

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

The Trouble Is Small, The Fun Is Great. [ger., Die Muh'ist Klein, Der Spass Ist Gross.]

The Artist Has A Twofold Relation To Nature; He Is At Once Her Master And Her Slave.

Treat A Person As They Are, They Will Remain So. Treat A Person The Way That Person Can Be And Is Capable Of Being And That Person Will Become As He Or She Can Be And Should Be.

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

A Man Is Really Alive Only When He Delights In The Good-will Of Others.

Man Is Made By His Belief. As He Believes, So He Is.

As Long As You Are Not Aware Of The Continual Law Of Die And Be Again, You Are Merely A Vague Guest On A Dark Earth.

Can A Sparrow Know How A Stork Feels?

Experience Is Only Half Of Experience.

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.

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

A State Of Affairs Which Leads To Daily Vexation Is Not The Right State.

As Beauteous Is The World, And Many A Joy Floats Through Its Wide Dominion. But, Alas, When We Would Seize The Winged Good, It Flies.

Alas! Sorrow From Happiness Is Oft Evolved.

Art Is A Severe Business; Most Serious When Employed In Grand And Sacred Objects. The Artist Stands Higher Than Art, Higher Than The Object. He Uses Art For His Purposes, And Deals With The Object After His Own Fashion.

The Worst Is That The Very Hardest Thinking Will Not Bring Thoughts. They Must Come Like Good Children Of God And Cry, "here We Are." You Expend Effort And Energy Thinking Hard. Then, After You Have Given Up, They Come Sauntering In With Their Hands In Their Pockets. If The Effort Had Not Been Made To Open The Door, However, Who Knows When They Could Have Come.

Whatever You Cannot Understand, You Cannot Possess.

Understanding And Love

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.

Oblivion Is Full Of People Who Allow The Opinions Of Others To Overrule Their Belief In Themselves.

To Be Loved For What One Is, That Is The Greatest Exception. The Great Majority Love In Others Only What They Lend Him; Their Own Selves, Their Version Of Him.

Stood I, O Nature! Man Alone In Thee, Then Were It Worth One's While A Man To Be.

Mozart Is A Human Incarnation Of The Divine Force Of Creation.

Know'st Thou Yesterday, Its Aim And Reason? Work'st Thou Will Today For Worthier Things? Then Calmly Wait The Morrow's Hidden Season, And Fear Thou Not, What Hap Soe'er It Brings

The Spectacle Of Nature Is Always New, For She Is Always Renewing The Spectators. Life Is Her Most Exquisite Invention; And Death Is Her Expert Contrivance To Get Plenty Of Life.

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

I Will Be Lord Over Myself.

In Every Artist There Is A Touch Of Audacity Without Which No Talent Is Conceivable.

God Could Cause Us Considerable Embarrassment By Revealing All The Secrets Of Nature To Us: We Should Not Know What To Do For Sheer Apathy And Boredom.

Keeping Secrets

You Are Certainly Wrong To Compare Suicide ... With Great Accomplishments, Since It Cannot Be Considered As Anything But A Weakness. After All, It Is Easier To Die Than To Endure A Harrowing Life With Fortitude.

To Act Is Easy, To Think Is Hard; To Act According To Our Thought Is Troublesome.

Unrest And Uncertainty Are Our Lot.

Our Modern Wars Make Many Unhappy While They Last And None Happy When They Are Over.

Art Rests On A Kind Of Religious Sense, On A Deep, Steadfast Earnestness; And On This Account It Unites So Readily With Religion.

True Love Is Love That Stays Constant For Ever, Whatever It's Fortune; Whether Requited Or Scored, Filled Or Sent Empty Away.

The Mob Has Nothing To Lose, Everything To Gain.

Nothing To Lose

No One Should Be Rich Except Those Who Understand It.

Man Is A Simple Being, And However Rich, Varied, And Unfathomable He May Be, The Cycle Of His Situations Is Soon Run Through.

Love Is An Ideal Thing, Marriage A Real Thing; A Confusion Of The Real With The Ideal Never Goes Unpunished.

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

The Words You've Bandied Are Sufficient; 'tis Deeds That I Prefer To See. [ger., Der Worte Sind Genug Gewechselt, Lasst Mich Auch Endlich Thaten Sehn.]

Thou Art In The End What Thou Art. Put On Wigs With Millions Of Curls, Set Thy Foot Upon Ell-high Rocks. Thou Abidest Ever--what Thou Art.

As All Nature's Thousands Changes But One Changeless God Proclaim; So In Art's Wide Kingdom Ranges One Sole Meaning Still The Same: This Is Truth, Eternal Reason, Which From Beauty Takes Its Dress, And Serene Through Time And Season Stands Aye In Loveliness.

Wisdom Is Only Found In Truth. [ger., Die Weisheit Ist Nur In Der Wahrheit.]

The Suffering May Be Moral Or Physical; And In My Opinion It Is Just As Absurd To Call A Man A Coward Who Destroys Himself, As To Call A Man A Coward Who Dies Of A Malignant Fever.

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.

A Resolution That Is Communicated Is No Longer Within Thy Power; Thy Attentions Become Now The Plaything Of Chance; He Who Would Have His Commands Certainly Carried Out Must Take Man By Surprise.

The Sea Is Flowing Ever, The Land Retains It Never.

The Mind Is Found Most Acute And Most Uneasy In The Morning. Uneasiness Is, Indeed, A Species Of Sagacity - A Passive Sagacity. Fools Are Never Uneasy.

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

Everything Perfect In Its Kind Has To Transcend Its Own Kind, It Must Become Something Different And Incomparable. In Some Notes The Nightingale Is Still A Bird; Then It Rises Above Its Class And Seems To Suggest To Every Winged Creature What Singing Is Truly Like.

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

Knowing Oneself

The History Of A Man Is In His Character.

Of The Book Of Books Most Wondrous Is The Tender Book Of Love.

I Do Not Now Begin, - I Still Adore Her Whom I Early Cherish'd In My Breast; Then Once Again With Prudence Dispossess'd, And To Whose Heart I'm Driven Back Once More. The Love Of Petrarch, That All-glorious Love, Was Unrequited, And, Alas, Full Sad.

Unrequited Love

Music Is Liquid Architecture; Architecture Is Frozen Music.

Progress Has Not Followed A Straight Ascending Line, But A Spiral With Rhythms Of Progress And Retrogression, Of Evolution And Dissolution.

No Two People See The World Exactly Alike, And Different Temperaments Will Often Apply The Same Principle, Recognized By Both, Differently. Even One And The Same Person Won't Always Maintain The Same Views And Judgments: Earlier Convictions Must Give Way To Later Ones.

He Who Cannot Love Must Learn To Flatter.

Few Men Have Imagination Enough For Reality.

The World Of Empirical Morality Consists For The Most Part Of Nothing But Ill Will And Envy.

The Rich Want Good Wine, The Poor, Plenty Of Wine

No One Knows What He Is Doing So Long As He Is Acting Rightly; But Of What Is Wrong One Is Always Conscious.

When Nature Begins To Reveal Her Open Secret To A Man, He Feels An Irresistible Longing For Her Worthiest Interpreter, Art.

Marriage Is The Beginning And Pinnacle Of Civilization.

The Greater The Knowledge, The Greater The Doubt.

To The Person With A Firm Purpose All Men And Things Are Servants.

Everything Is Simpler Than One Can Imagine, And Yet Complicated And Inter-twined Beyond Comprehension.

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

Love One Another

To The World You Might Be One Person, But To One Person, You Might Be The World. Kindness Is The Golden Chain By Which Our World Is Bound Together.

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.

Of All Peoples The Greeks Have Dreamt The Dream Of Life Best.

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

No Sacred Fane Requires Us To Submit To Insult.

Things Which Matter Most Must Never Be At The Mercy Of Things Which Matter Least.

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

Only The Heart Without A Stain Knows Ease.

We Are Pantheists As Natural Scientists, Polytheists As Poets, And Monotheists As Moral Beings.

Energy Is The Basis Of Everything. Every Jew, No Matter How Insignificant, Is Engaged In Some Decisive And Immediate Pursuit Of A Goal... It Is The Most Perpetual People Of The Earth.

He Who Has A Task To Perform Must Know How To Take Sides, Or He Is Quite Unworthy Of It.

In The Realm Of Ideas Everything Depends On Enthusiasm... In The Real World All Rests On Perseverance.

Life Teaches Us To Be Less Harsh With Ourselves And With Others.

Willing Is Not Enough, We Must Do.

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

Love Each Other

We Can Stand Only A Certain Amount Of Unhappiness; Anything Beyond That Annihilates Us Or Passes Us By, Leaving Us Apathethetic.

If I Love You, What Business Is It Of Yours?

Funny Relationship

We Know Accurately Only When We Know Little, With Knowledge Doubt Increases.

Man Knows Himself Only Insofar As He Knows The World, Becoming Aware Of It If Only Within Himself, And Of Himself Self Only Within It. Each New Subject, Well Observed, Opens Up Within Us A New Organ Of Thought.

This World Could Not Exist If It Were Not So Simple. The Ground Has Been Tilled A Thousand Years, Yet Its Powers Remain Ever The Same; A Little Rain, A Little Sun, And Each Spring It Grows Green Again.

If We Meet Someone Who Owes Us A Debt Of Gratitude, We Remember The Fact At Once. How Often We Can Meet Someone To Whom We Owe A Debt Of Gratitude Without Thinking About It At All!

The Master Proves Himselin Recognizing His Limitations.

Each One Of Us Must Carry Within The Proof Of Immortality, It Cannot Be Given From Outside Of Us. To Be Sure, Everything In Natureis Change But Behind The Change There Is Something Eternal.

As Long As You Don't Practice It, This Dying And Becoming, You Are Only A Dreary Guest On This Dark Earth.

One Should Not Wish Anyone Disagreeable Conditions Of Life; But For Him Who Is Involved In Them By Chance, They Are Touchstones Of Characters And Of The Most Decisive Value To Man.

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

Character, In Great And Little Things, Means Carrying Through What You Feel Able To Do.

Even The Lowliest, Provided He Is Whole, Can Be Happy, And In His Own . Way, Perfect.

The Present Moment Is A Powerful Goddess.

Nothing Is More Fearful Than Imagination Without Taste.

Help Me To Discover Thy Truth, O Lord, And Preserve Me From Those Who Have Already Found It

A Man Is Not Little When He Finds It Difficult To Cope With Circumstances, But When Circumstances Overmaster Him.

Always To Distrust Is An Error, As Well As Always To Trust.

Do Not Give In Too Much To Feelings. A Overly Sensitive Heart Is An Unhappy Possession On This Shaky Earth.

Sensitive Person

Our Senses Don't Deceive Us: Our Judgment Does

I Treat My Heart Like A Sick Child And Gratify Its Every Fancy

The Society Of Women Is The Element Of Good Manners.

You Must Either Conquer And Rule Or Serve And Lose, Suffer Or Triumph, Be The Anvil Or The Hammer.

Don't Dissipate Your Powers; Strive To Concentrate Them. Genius Thinks It Can Do Whatever It Sees Others Doing, But It Will Surely Repent Of Every Ill-judged Outlay.

If You Treat Men The Way They Are You Never Improve Them. If You Treat Them The Way You Want Them To Be, You Do.

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

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.

Properly Speaking, We Learn From Those Books Only That We Cannot Judge. The Author Of A Book That I Am Competent To Criticise Would Have To Learn From Me.

Ambition And Love Are The Wings Of Great Actions.

If You Live Criticizing People, You Won't Have Time To Love Them.

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