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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.

-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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The Sun Had, In

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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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.

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More From Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Only The Heart Without A Stain Knows Ease.

There Is No Surer Method Of Evading The World Than By Following Art, And No Surer Method Of Linking Oneself To It Than By Art.

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

So Dear Night The Half Of Life Is, And The Fairest Half Indeed.

Nothing Is More Dangerous Than Solitude.

Whatever Liberates Our Spirit, Without Also Giving Us Mastery Over Ourselves, Is Destructive.

Every Offense Is Avenged On Earth.

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

A Man's Foibles Are What Makes Him Lovable.

Is This The Destiny Of Man? Is He Only Happy Before He Has Acquired His Reason Or After He Has Lost It?

There Is Nothing More Frightful Than Ignorance In Action.

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

To Witness Two Lovers Is A Spectacle For The Gods.

And Future Deeds Crowded Round Us As The Countless Stars In The Night. [ger., Und Kunftige Thaten Drangen Wie Die Sterne Rings Um Uns Her Unzahlig Aus Der Nacht.]

All Things Are Only Transitory.

Habit Is The Most Imperious Of All Masters.

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

It Doesn't Behoove Elderly Persons To Follow Fashion In Their Thinking Nor In The Way They Dress.

Our Destiny Often Looks Like A Fruit-tree In Winter. Who Would Think From Its Pitiable Aspect That Those Rigid Boughs, Those Rough Twigs Could Next Spring Again Be Green, Bloom, And Even Bear Fruit? Yet We Hope It, We Know It.

There Speaks The Man Of Truly Noble Ways, Who Will Not Listen To The Words Of Praise. In Modesty Averse, And With Deaf Ears, He Acts As Though The Others Were His Peers.

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

Sound And Sufficient Reason Falls, After All, To The Share Of But Few Men, And Those Few Men Exert Their Influence In Silence.

Oh How Sweet It Is To Hear One's Own Convictions From Another's Lips.

Kindness Is The Golden Thread That Holds Society Together.

We Are Surrounded By Abysses, But The Greatest Of All Depths Is In Our Own Heart, And An Irresistible Leaning Leads Us There. Draw Thyself From Thyself!

We Lay Aside Letters Never To Read Them Again, And At Last We Destroy Them Out Discretion, And So Disappears The Most Immediate Breath Of Life, Irrecoverably For Ourselves And For Others.

Experiments Are Mediators Between Nature And Idea.

He Who Possesses Science And Art, Possesses Religion As Well; He Who Possesses Neither Of These, Had Better Have Religion.

Science And Religion

How Can You Come To Know Yourself? Never By Thinking, Always By Doing. Try To Do Your Duty, And You'll Know Right Away What You Amount To.

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

We Amuse Ourselves Painting Our Prison-walls With Bright Figures And Brilliant Landscapes.

What Am I Then...? Everything That I Have Seen, Heard, And Observed I Have Collected And Exploited. My Works Have Been Nourished By Countless Different Individuals, By Innocent And Wise Ones, People Of Intelligence And Dunces. Childhood, Maturity And Old Age All Have Brought Me Their Thoughts....their Perspectives On Life. I Have Often Reaped What Others Have Sowed. My Work Is The Work Of A Collective Being That Bears The Name Goethe.

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.

This Being Busied With Thoughts Of Immortality Is For The Noble Classes And Especially For Women With Nothing To Do. A Solid Person, Though, Someone Who Already Intends To Be Something Worthy Here, And Who Therefore Has To Strive Daily, Has To Struggle And Work, Gives The World To Come A Rest.

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

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

He Who Enjoys Doing And Enjoys What He Has Done Is Happy.

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

What One Has Wished For In Youth, In Old Age One Has In Abundance.

So Much Has Already Been Said About Shakespeare That There Doesn't Seem To Be Anything More To Say; Yet It Is The Quality Of The Spirit That It Forever Stimulates The Spirit.

When She Sees The Leaves Fall, They Raise No Other Idea In Her Mind Than That Winter Is Approaching.

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

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

There Is No Patriotic Art And No Patriotic Science.

You Can Put Up With Everything In This World Except Not With A Long Stretch Of Beautiful Days.

Nothing Puts Me So Completely Out Of Patience As The Utterance Of A Wretched Commonplace When I Am Talking From My Inmost Heart.

Plunge Boldly Into The Thick Of Life!

All That Is Alive Tends Toward Color, Individuality, Specificity, Effectiveness And Opacity. All That Is Done With Life Inclines Toward Knowledge, Abstraction, Generality Transfiguration And Transparency.

If A Man Writes A Book, Let Him Set Down Only What He Knows. I Have Guesses Enough Of My Own.

If You Don't Feel It, You'll Never Achieve It.

Wisdom Is Found Only In Truth.

The Main Thing Is To Have A Soul That Loves The Truth And Harbours It Where He Finds It. And Another Thing: Truth Requires Constant Repetition, Because Error Is Being Preached About Us All The Time, And Not Only By Isolated Individuals But By The Masses. In The Newspapers And Encyclopedias, In Schools And Universities, Everywhere Error Rides High And Basks In The Consciousness Of Having The Majority On Its Side.

If You Wish To Know The Mind Of A Man, Listen To His Words.

Love Is An Ideal Thing, Marriage A Real Thing

There Is Nothing More Fearful Than Imagination Without Taste. [ger., Es Ist Nichts Furchterlicher Als Einbildungskraft Ohne Geschmack.]

To Make An Epoch In The World, Two Conditions Are Manifestly Essential-a Good Head And A Great Inheritance.

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

The Greatest Happiness For The Thinking Person Is To Have Explored The Explorable And To Venerate In Equanimity That Which Cannotbe Explored.

What Matters In Art Is Not Thinking But Making.

Once More I Am A Wanderer, A Pilgrim, Through The World. But What Else Are You?

Not All That Is Presented To Us As History Has Really Happened; And What Really Happened Did Not Actually Happen The Way It Is Presented To Us; Moreover, What Really Happened Is Only A Small Part Of All That Happened. Everything In History Remains Uncertain, The Largest Events As Well As The Smallest Occurrence.

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

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.]

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

Passions Are Vices Or Virtues To Their Highest Powers.

At All Times It Has Not Been The Age, But Individuals Alone, Who Have Worked For Knowledge. It Was The Age Which Put Socrates To Death By Poison, The Age Which Burnt Huss. The Ages Have Always Remained Alike.

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

It Makes No Good To Point The Failures Out Without Showing At The Same Time The Remedy To Address Them.

Dauer In Wechsel. Duration In Change.

To A Valet No Man Is A Hero.

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

Whoso Is Content With Pure Experience And Acts Upon It Has Enough Of Truth.

To A Valet No Man Is A Hero. [ger., Es Gibt Fur Den Kammerdiener Keiner Helden.]

Investigate What Is, And Not What Pleases.

I Will Be Lord Over Myself.

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

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!

Superstition Is The Poesy Of Practical Life; Hence, A Poet Is None The Worse For Being Superstitious.

Beauty And Genius Must Be Kept Afar If One Would Avoid Becoming Their Slave.

Against Criticism A Man Can Neither Protest Nor Defend Himself; He Must Act In Spite Of It, And Then It Will Gradually Yield To Him.

Know'st Thou The Land Where The Lemon-trees Bloom, Where The Gold Orange Glows In The Deep Thicket's Gloom, Where A Wind Ever Soft From The Blue Heaven Blows, And The Groves Are Of Laurel And Myrtle And Rose!

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

If I Accept You As You Are, I Will Make You Worse; However, If I Treat You As Though You Are What You Are Capable Of Becoming, I Help You Become That.

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

Lose This Day Loitering 'twill Be The Same Old Story, Tomorrow And The Next, Even More Dilatory. Whatever You Would Do, Or Dream Of Doing, Begin It! Boldness Has Power, Genius, And Magic In It. Begin It Now.

Instruction Does Much, But Encouragement Everything.

Common Sense Is The Genius Of Humanity.

Thank God When He Oppresses You, And Again When He Releases You.

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.

The Longer I Live, The More It Grieves Me To See Man, Who Occupies His Supreme Place For The Very Purpose Of Imposing His Will Upon Nature, And Freeing Himself And His From An Outrageous Necessity--to See Him Taken Up With Some False Notion, And Doing Just The Opposite Of What He Wants To Do; And Then, Because The Whole Bent Of His Mind Is Spoilt, Bungling Miserably Over Everything.

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

A Word Spoken Is A Terrible Thing When It Suddenly Utters What The Heart Has Long Allowed.

He Who Possesses Art And Science Has Religion; He Who Does Not Possess Them, Needs Religion.

Yet Through Delivery Orators Succeed, I Feel That I Am Far Behind Indeed. [ger., Allein Der Vortrag Macht Des Redners Gluck, Ich Fuhl Es Wohl Noch Bin Ich Weit Zuruck.]

It Seems To Never Occur To Fools That Merit And Good Fortune Are Closely United.

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.

What Is The Path? There Is No Path. On Into The Unknown.

Upon The Creatures We Have Made, We Are, Ourselves, At Last, Dependent.

Vanity Is A Desire Of Personal Glory, The Wish To Be Appreciated, Honoured, And Run After, Not Because Of One's Personal Qualities, Merits, And Achievements, But Because Of One's Individual Existence. At Best, Therefore, It Is A Frivolous Beauty Whim It Befits.

Personal Qualities

Time Itself Is An Element.

The Decline Of Literature Indicates The Decline Of A Nation.

Whatever Is The Object Of A Saint's Hope Is The Subject Of His Prayer.

The Nude Is The Perfect Expression Of Freedom. Freedom To Be.

Man Must Strive, And Striving He Must Err.

Nothing Will Change The Fact That I Cannot Produce The Least Thing Without Absolute Solitude.

Can A Sparrow Know How A Stork Feels?

First And Last, What Is Demanded Of Genius Is Love Of Truth.

A Talent Is Formed In Stillness, A Character In The World's Torrent.

None Are So Hopelessly Enslaved, As Those Who Falsely Believe They Are Free. The Truth Has Been Kept From The Depth Of Their Minds By Masters Who Rule Them With Lies. They Feed Them On Falsehoods Till Wrong Looks Like Right In Their Eyes.

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.

Let There Be Truth Between Us.

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.

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

Insignificant Things

Thou Tremblest Before Anticipated Ills, And Still Bemoanest What Thou Never Losest.

Modern Poets Add A Lot Of Water To Their Ink.

The Highest Goal That Man Can Achieve Is Amazement.

Man Cannot Persist Long In A Conscious State, He Must Throw Himself Back Into The Unconscious, For His Root Lives There.

Unrest And Uncertainty Are Our Lot.

Let Us Live, While We Are Alive!

What Is Predestination? Answer: God Is More Powerful And Wiser Than We Are, Therefore He Deals With Us According To His Pleasure.

Everything Is Hard Before It Is Easy.

Truth Is A Torch But A Tremendous One. That Is Why We Hurry Past It, Shielding Our Eyes, Indeed, In Fear Of Getting Burned.

The Soul Of Man Is Like To Water; From Heaven It Cometh, To Heaven It Riseth And Then Returning To Earth, Forever Alternating.

The World Cannot Do Without Great Men, But Great Men Are Very Troublesome To The World.

If You Modestly Enjoy Your Fame You Are Not Unworthy To Rank With The Holy.

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

Everybody Wants To Be Somebody; Nobody Wants To Grow.

No, No! The Devil Is An Egotist, And Is Not Apt, Without Why Or Wherefore, "for God's Sake," Others To Assist. [ger., Nein, Nein! Der Teufel Ist Ein Egoist Und Thut Nicht Leicht Um Gottes Willen, Was Einem Andern Nutzlich Ist.]

Whoever Strikes At Marriage Either By Word Or Act Undermines The Foundation Of All Moral Society.

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.

Love Of Truth Shows Itself In This, That A Man Knows How To Find And Value The Good In Everything.

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

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

Men Show Their Character In Nothing More Clearly Than What They Think Laughable.

Nature Is So Perfect That The Trinity Couldn't Have Fashioned Her Any More Perfect. She Is An Organ On Which Our Lord Plays And The Devil Works The Bellows.

There Is Nothing In Life So Irrational, That Good Sense And Chance May Not Set It To Rights; Nothing So Rational, That Folly And Chance May Not Utterly Confound It.

Analysis And Synthesis Are Both As Necessary To The Thinking Spirit As Inspiration And Expiration To The Organism.

Everything Great And Intelligent Is In The Minority

Time Flies, And What Is Past Is Done.

Certain Books Seem To Be Written, Not That We Might Learn From Them, But In Order That We Might See How Much The Author Knows.

We Accept Every Person In The World As That For Which He Gives Himself Out, Only He Must Give Himself Out For Something. We Can Put Up With The Unpleasant More Easily Than We Can Endure The Insignificant.

There Is Nothing Worse Than Aggressive Stupidity.

One Must Be Something, In Order To Do Something.

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

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

We Are Forced To Participate In The Games Of Life Before We Can Possibly Learn How To Use The Options In The Rules Governing Them.

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

You'll Never Attain It Unless You Know The Feeling.

There Are Two Things Parents Should Give Their Children Roots And Wings. Roots To Give Them Bearing And A Sense Of Belonging, But Also Wings To Help Free Them From Constraints And Prejudices And Give Them Other Ways To Travel (or Rather, To Fly).

Association With Women Is The Basis Of Good Manners.

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.

The Unnatural, That Too Is Natural.

Say What We May Of The Inadequacy Of Translation, Yet The Work Is And Will Always Be One Of The Weightiest And Worthiest Undertakings In The General Concerns Of The World.

I Make Presents To The Mother But Think Of The Daughter.

The Greater The Knowledge, The Greater The Doubt.

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

A Human Being Needs Only A Small Plot Of Ground On Which To Be Happy, And Even Less To Lie Beneath.

If You Want Someone To Develop A Specific Trait, Treat Them As Though They Already Had It.

One Criticizes The English For Carrying Their Teapots Wherever They Go, Even Lugging Them Up Mount Etna. But Doesn't Every Nationhave Its Teapot, In Which, Even When Traveling, It Brews The Dried Bundles Of Herbs Brought From Home?

Seize This Very Minute. What You Can Do Or Dream You Can Do, Begin It. Begin It And The Work Will Be Completed

Because Everyone Uses Language To Talk, Everyone Thinks He Can Talk About Language.

Master And Doctor Are My Titles; For Ten Years Now, Without Repose, I Held My Erudite Recitals And Led My Pupils By The Nose.

First Let A Man Teach Himself, And Then He Will Be Taught By Others.

Beauty Is Everywhere A Welcome Guest.

How Many Kings Are Governed By Their Ministers, How Many Ministers By Their Secretaries? Who, In Such Cases, Is Really The Chief?

Let Us Seek To Fathom Those Things That Are Fathomable And Reserve Those Things Which Are Unfathomable For Reverence In Quietude.

I Will Say With Lorenzo De Medici That Those Who Do Not Hope For Another Life Are Always Dead To This 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.

If One Has Not Read The Newspapers For Some Months And Then Reads Them All Together, One Sees, As One Never Saw Before, How Much Time Is Wasted With This Kind Of Literature.

Thought Provoking

Everywhere, We Learn Only From Those Whom We Love.

In All Things, To Serve From The Lowest Station Upwards Is Necessary. To Restrict Yourself To A Trade Is Best. For The Narrow Mind, Whatever He Attempts Is Still A Trade; For The Higher, An Art; And The Highest In Doing One Thing Does All, Or, To Speak Less Paradoxically, In The One Thing Which He Does Rightly He Sees The Likeness Of All That Is Done Rightly.

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

Once You Have Missed The First Buttonhole, You'll Never Manage To Button Up.

Reason Looks At Necessity As The Basis Of The World; Reason Is Able To Turn Chance In Your Favor And Use It. Only By Having Reasonremain Strong And Unshakable Can We Be Called A God Of The Earth.

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

The Desire To Explain What Is Simple By What Is Complex, What Is Easy By What Is Difficult, Is A Calamity.

He Who Is Firm And Resolute In Will Molds The World To Himself.

What You Can Do, Or Think You Can, Begin It.

Decision Making

Impotent Hatred Is The Most Horrible Of All Emotions; One Should Hate Nobody Whom One Cannot Destroy.

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.

One Is Never Deceived; One Deceives Oneself.

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

We Always Hope, And In All Things It Is Better To Hope Than To Despair.

They Should Be Ashamed Of Themselves, All These Sober People!

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

Nature Is, After All, The Only Book That Offers Important Content On Every Page.

Most Men, Even The Most Accomplished, Are Of Limited Faculties; Every One Sets A Value On Certain Qualities In Himself And Others: These Alone He Is Willing To Favour, These Alone Will He Have Cultivated.

All Our Knowledge Is Symbolic.

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

No One Feels Himself Easy In A Garden Which Does Not Look Like The Open Country.

The Happiest Man Is The One Who Finds Happiness At Home.

Finding Happiness

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.

Oh Happy He Who Still Can Hope In Our Day To Breathe The Truth While Plunged In Seas Of Error! What We Don't Know Is Really What We Need, And What We Know Is Of No Use To Us Whatever!

Culture Which Smooth The Whole World Licks, Also Unto The Devil Sticks.

Every Man Bears Something Within Him That, If It Were Publicly Announced, Would Excite Feelings Of Aversion.

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

The People Who Are Absent Are The Ideal; Those Who Are Present Seem To Be Quite Commonplace.

Light Has Called Forth One Organ To Become Its Like, And Thus The Eye Is Formed By The Light And For The Light So That The Inner Light May Emerge To Meet The Outer Light.

What A Day It Is When We Must Envy The Men In Their Graves.

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.

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