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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!

-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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We Are Surrounded By

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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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!

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In Society Every Man Is Taken For What He Gives Himself Out To Be; But He Must Give Himself Out To Be Something. Better To Be Slightly Disagreeable Than Altogether Insignificant.

From Desire I Plunge To Its Fulfilment, Where I Long Once More For Desire.

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

Passions Are Defects Or Virtues In The Highest Power.

What Is The Destiny Of Man, But To Fill Up The Measure Of His Sufferings, And To Drink His Allotted Cup Of Bitterness?

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

The Bible Grows More Beautiful, As We Grow In Our Understanding Of It.

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.

To Be Sure, We Have Inherited Abilities, But Our Development We Owe To Thousands Of Influences Coming From The World Around Us From Which We Appropriate What We Can And What Is Suitable To Us.

Architecture Is Crystallized Music.

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.

To Rule Is Easy, To Govern Difficult.

A Rainbow Which Lasts For A Quarter Of An Hour Is Looked At No Longer.

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

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

People Are So Constituted That Everybody Would Rather Undertake What They See Others Do, Whether They Have An Aptitude For It Or Not.

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.

When We See The Many Grave-stones Which Have Fallen In, Which Have Been Defaced By The Footsteps Of The Congregation, Which Lie Buried Under The Ruins Of The Churches, That Have Themselves Crumbled Together Over Them; We May Fancy The Life After Death To Be As A Second Life, Into Which Man Enters In The Figure, Or The Picture Or The Inscription, And Lives Longer There Than When He Was Really Alive. But This Figure Also, This Second Existence, Dies Out Too, Sooner Or Later. Time Will Not Allow Himself To Be Cheated Of His Rights With The Monuments Of Men Or With Themselves.

Wealth And Speed Are What The World Admires, What Each Pursues. Railways, Express Mails, Steamships And Every Possible Facility For Communications Are The Achievement In Which The Civilized World View And Revels, Only To Languish In Mediocrity By That Very Fact. Indeed, The Effect Of This Diffusion Is To Spread The Culture Of The Mediocre.

Unlimited Activity, Of Whatever Kind, Must End In Bankruptcy.

I Will Listen To Anyone's Convictions, But Pray Keep Your Doubts To Yourself.

Shakespeare Is A Great Psychologist, And Whatever Can Be Known Of The Heart Of Man May Be Found In His Plays.

The Primal Plant Is Going Be The Strangest Creature In The World, Which Nature Herself Must Envy Me. With This Model And The Key To It, It Will Be Possible To Go On For Ever Inventing Plants And Know That Their Existence Is Logical; That Is To Say, If They Do Not Actually Exist, They Could, For They Are Not The Shadowy Phantoms Of A Vain Imagination, But Possess An Inner Necessity And Truth. The Same Law Will Be Applicable To All Other Living Organisms.

The Deed Is Everything, The Glory Is Naught.

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

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

The Deepest, The Only Theme Of Human History, Compared To Which All Others Are Of Subordinate Importance, Is The Conflict Of Skepticism With Faith.

What Matters In Art Is Not Thinking But Making.

Age Does Not Make Us Childish, As Some Say; It Finds Us True Children.

The Older We Grow, The Greater Become The Ordeals.

We Are Shaped And Fashioned By What We Love

Every Author In Some Way Portrays Himself In His Works, Even If It Be Against His Will.

And Here, Poor Fool, With All My Lore I Stand No Wiser Than Before.

The Use Of A Thing Is Only A Part Of Its Significance. To Know Anything Thoroughly, To Have The Full Command Of It In All Its Appliances, We Must Study It On Its Own Account, Independently Of Any Special Application.

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.

Man's Highest Merit Always Is, As Much As Possible, To Rule External Circumstances And As Little As Possible To Let Himself Be Ruled By Them.

Quite Often, As Life Goes On, When We Feel Completely Secure As We Go On Our Way, We Suddenly Notice That We Are Trapped In Error, That We Have Allowed Ourselves To Be Taken In By Individuals, By Objects, Have Dreamt Up An Affinity With Them Which Immediately Vanishes Before Our Waking Eye; And Yet We Cannot Tear Ourselves Away, Held Fast By Some Power That Seems Incomprehensible To Us. Sometimes, However, We Become Fully Aware And Realize That Error As Well As Truth Can Move And Spur Us On To Action.

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

By The Artist's Seizing Any One Object From Nature, That Object No Longer Is Part Of Nature. One Can Go So Far As To Say That Theartist Creates The Object In That Very Moment By Emphasizing Its Significant, Characteristic, And Interesting Aspects Or, Rather, By Adding The Higher Values.

When The Healthy Nature Of Man Acts As A Whole, When He Feels Himself To Be In The World As In A Great, Beautiful, Noble, And Valued Whole, When Harmonious Ease Affords Him A Pure And Free Delight, Then The Universe, If It Could Experience Itself, Would Exult, As Having Attained Its Goal, And Admire The Climax Of Its Own Becoming And Essence.

Our Virtues And View Spring From One Root.

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

It Is As Certain As It Is Strange That Truth And Error Come From One And The Same Source. Thus It Is That We Are Often Not At Liberty To Do Violence To Error, Because At The Same Time We Do Violence To Truth.

Dream No Small Dreams For They Have No Power To Move The Hearts Of Men.

Man Must Strive, And Striving He Must Err.

It Is The Nature Of Grace Always To Fill Spaces That Have Been Empty.

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.

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

The Close And Thoughtful Observer More And More Learns To Recognize His Limitations. He Realizes That With The Steady Growth Of Knowledge More And More New Problems Keep On Emerging.

There Is No Patriotic Art.

Ah! My Poor Brain Is Racked And Crazed, My Spirit And Senses Amazed!

There Is No Outward Sign Of True Courtesy That Does Not Rest On A Deep Moral Foundation.

Self-knowledge Comes From Knowing Other Men.

The Man Of Understanding Finds Everything Laughable.

Marriage Is The Beginning And Pinnacle Of Civilization.

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

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.

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.

Man Errs As Long As He Strives.

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.

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

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

If Man Thinks About His Physical Or Moral State He Usually Discovers That He Is Ill.

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

Beauty Is Everywhere A Welcome Guest.

Piety, Like Nobility, Has Its Aristocracy.

You Don't Love If You Don't Take The Beloved's Faults For Virtues.

True Happiness Springs From Moderation. [ger., Aus Massigkeit Entspringt Ein Reines Gluck.]

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.

What We Do Not Understand We Do Not Possess.

A Noble Man Is Led By Woman's Gentle Words.

Art Is In Itself Noble; That Is Why The Artist Has No Fear Of What Is Common. This, Indeed, Is Already Ennobled When He Takes It Up.

[w]hat Counts Is That One Perceives Excellence And Dares To Give It Expression, Which Sounds Little But Is In Fact A Great Deal.

An Actor Should Take Lessons From A Painter And A Sculptor.

All Perishable Is But An Allegory.

To Appreciate The Noble Is A Gain Which Can Never Be Torn From Us.

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 Can Promise To Be Sincere, But I Cannot Promise To Be Impartial.

All Beginnings Are Delightful; The Threshold Is The Place To Pause.

Many Young Painters Would Never Have Taken Their Pencils In Hand If They Could Have Felt, Known, And Understood, Early Enough, What Really Produced A Master Like Raphael.

There Is No Crime Of Which I Do Not Deem Myself Capable.

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.

Music Is So Elevated That It Is Beyond The Reach Of Intellect And There Flows From It An Influence Which Is All-potent, And Which Noone Can Explain.

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

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

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

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

It Is A Great Pleasure To Transport One's-self Into The Spirit Of The Times; To See How A Wise Man Has Thought Before Us, And To What A Glorious Height We Have At Last Carried It.

I Have Heard Myself Accused Of Being An Opponent, An Enemy Of Mathematics, Which No One Can Value More Highly Than I, For It Accomplishes The Very Thing Whose Achievement Has Been Denied Me.

To Become Aware In Time When Young Of The Advantages Of Age; To Maintain The Advantages Of Youth In Old Age: Both Are Pure Fortune.

I Hate Everything That Merely Instructs Me Without Augmenting Or Directly Invigorating My Activity.

Man... Knows Only When He Is Satisfied And When He Suffers, And Only His Sufferings And His Satisfactions Instruct Him Concerning Himself, Teach Him What To Seek And What To Avoid. For The Rest, Man Is A Confused Creature; He Knows Not Whence He Comes Or Whither He Goes, He Knows Little Of The World, And Above All, He Knows Little Of Himself.

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

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

Win For Yourself That Which Your Fathers Have Won.

The Older I Get The More I Trust In The Law According To Which The Rose And The Lily Bloom.

My Worthy Friend, Gray Are All Theories And Green Alone Life's Golden Tree.

The Flowers Are Full Of Honey, But Only The Bee Finds Out The Sweetness.

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

With The Growth Of Knowledge Our Ideas Must From Time To Time Be Organized Afresh. The Change Takes Place Usually In Accordance With New Maxims As They Arise, But It Always Remains Provisional.

Nature Is The Living, Visible Garment Of God.

The Most Foolish Of All Errors Is For Clever Young Men To Believe That They Forfeit Their Originality In Recognizing A Truth Which Has Already Been Recognized By Others.

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.

While Man's Desires And Aspirations Stir He Cannot Choose But Err.

We Can Really Respect A Man Only If He Doesn't Always Look Out For Himself.

The Web Of This World Is Woven Of Necessity And Chance. Woe To Him Who Has Accustomed Himself From His Youth Up To Find Something Necessary In What Is Capricious, And Who Would Ascribe Something Like Reason To Chance And Make A Religion Of Surrendering To It.

You Shall Abstain, Shall Abstain. That Is The Eternal Song.

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

Yes, I Have Finally Arrived To This Capital Of The World! I Now See All The Dreams Of My Youth Coming To Life... Only In Rome Is It Possible To Understand Rome.

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

Everyone Holds His Fortune In His Own Hands, Like A Sculptor The Raw Material He Will Fashion Into A Figure. But It's The Same With That Type Of Artistic Activity As With All Others: We Are Merely Born With The Capability To Do It. The Skill To Mold The Material Into What We Want Must Be Learned And Attentively Cultivated.

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

When Toward The Devil's Hose We Tread, Woman's A Thousand Steps Behind. [ger., Denn Geht Es Zu Des Bosen Haus Das Weib Hat Tausend Schritt Voraus.]

Nothing Is So Atrocious As Fancy Without Taste.

We Talk Too Much. We Should Talk Less And Draw More.

Gifts Come From Above In Their Own Peculiar Forms.

Whoever Gives Himself Up To Solitude, Ah! He Is Soon Alone.

The Heights Charm Us, But The Steps Do Not; With The Mountain In Our View We Love To Walk The Plains.

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

The Evil One Has Left, The Evil Ones Remain.

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

The Fate Of The Architect Is The Strangest Of All. How Often He Expends His Whole Soul, His Whole Heart And Passion, To Produce Buildings Into Which He Himself May Never Enter.

If A Man Sets Out To Study All The Laws, He Will Have No Time Left To Transgress Them.

True Works Of Art Are A Manifestation Of The Higher Laws Of Nature.

It Is The Strange Fate Of Man, That Even In The Greatest Of Evils The Fear Of The Worst Continues To Haunt Him.

I Respect The Man Who Knows Distinctly What He Wants.

For The Butterfly, Mating And Propagation Involve The Sacrifice Of Life, For The Human Being, The Sacrifice Of Beauty.

He Who Is Firm In Will Molds The World To Himself. [ger., Aber Wer Fest Auf Dem Sinne Beharrt, Der Bildet Die Welt Sich.]

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

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

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

A Good Person, Striving Dimly, Is Well Aware Of The Right Path.

The Force Of A Language Does Not Consist Of Rejecting What Is Foreign But Of Swallowing It.

Beware Of Her Fair Hair, For She Excels All Women In The Magic Of Her Locks; And When She Winds Them Round A Young Man's Neck, She Will Not Ever Set Him Free Again.

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.

How Circumscribed Is Woman's Destiny!

Who Longs In Solitude To Live, Ah! Soon His Wish Will Gain: Men Hope And Love, Men Get And Give, And Leave Him To His Pain.

Self-love Exaggerates Our Faults As Well As Our Virtues.

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

If The Whole World I Once Could See On Free Soil Stand, With The People Free Then To The Moment Might I Say, Linger Awhile. . .so Fair Thou Art.

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

Do Thine Own Task, And Be Therewith Content.

I Always Seek The Good That Is In People And Leave The Bad To Him Who Made Mankind And Knows How To Round Off The Corners.

Sceptics Are Yet The Most Credulous.

The Most Original Of Authors Are Not So Because They Advance What Is New, But More Because They Know How To Say Something, As If It Had Never Been Said Before.

The Day Is For Mistake And Error, Sequence Of Time For Success And Carrying Out. The One Who Anticipates Is Master Of The Day.

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

If You Don't Know Foreign Languages, You Don't Know Anything About Your Own.

Foreign Language

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

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.

Generosity Wins Favour For Everyone, Especially When It Is Accompanied By Modesty.

All Truths Are Old, And All That We Have To Do Is Recognize And Utter Them Anew.

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

All Understanding Begins In Wonder!

Life Seems So Vulgar, So Easily Content With The Commonplace Things Of Every Day, And Yet It Always Nurses And Cherishes Certain Higher Claims In Secret, And Looks About For The Means Of Satisfying Them.

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.

Few Men Have Imagination Enough For Reality.

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

Please Send Me Your Last Pair Of Shoes, Worn Out With Dancing As You Mentioned In Your Letter, So That I Might Have Something To Press Against My Heart.

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.

America, You Have It Better Than Our Continent, The Old One.

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

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.

Our Mistakes And Failures Are Always The First To Strike Us, And Outweigh In Our Imagination What We Have Accomplished And Attained.

The Ground That A Good Man Treads Is Hallowed.

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

What Then Is Your Duty? What The Day Demands.

I Am Fully Convinced That The Soul Is Indestructible, And Its Activity Will Continue Through Eternity.

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

What Is Part Of You, You Cannot Get Rid Of, Even If You Were To Throw It Away.

The Loss Of A Much-prized Treasure Is Only Half Felt When We Have Not Regarded Its Tenure As Secure.

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

Whoever Would Do Good In The World, Ought Not To Deal In Censure. We Ought Not To Destroy, But Rather Construct.

A Man's Manners Are A Mirror In Which He Shows His Portrait.

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

I Do Not Speak Of What I Cannot Praise.

I Bid The Chords Sweet Music Make, And All Must Follow In My Wake.

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

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

The Master Proves Himselin Recognizing His Limitations.

No Man Learns To Know His Inmost Nature By Introspection, For He Rates Himself Sometimes Too Low, And Often Too High, By His Own Measurement. Man Knows Himself Only By Comparing Himself With Other Men; It Is Life That Touches His Genuine Worth.

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

With Knowledge Comes More Doubt.

Whoso Shrinks From Ideas Ends By Having Nothing But Sensations.

People Of Uncommon Abilities Generally Fall Into Eccentricities When Their Sphere Of Life Is Not Adequate To Their Abilities.

The Most Fortunate Of Men, Be He A King Or Commoner, Is He Whose Welfare Is Assured In His Own Home.

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

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

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

This Is The Highest Wisdom That I Own; Freedom And Life Are Earned By Those Alone Who Conquer Them Each Day Anew.

Someone Criticized An Elderly Man For Wooing Young Women. He Replied That That Was The Only Way To Rejuvenation, Which Was, Afterall, Everybody's Wish.

Of All Thieves, Fools Are The Worst; They Rob You Of Time And Temper.

Man Can Only Endure A Certain Degree Of Unhappiness; What Is Beyond That Either Annihilates Him Or Passes By Him And Leaves Him Apathetic

Men In A State Of Nature, Uncivilized Nations, Children, Have A Great Fondness For Colors In Their Utmost Brightness, And Especially For Yellow-red.

It Is Opposition That Makes Us Productive.

Love Does Not Rule; But It Trains, And That Is More.

I Was Oppressed With The Sensations I Then Felt; I Sunk Under The Weight Of Them.

What Right Those Who Govern Have To Govern They Don't Question, They Just Govern. Whether The People Have A Right To Depose Them That Doesn't Concern Them. All They Are Concerned With Is That The People Will Not Be Tempted To Depose Them.

Kindness Is The Golden Thread That Holds Society Together.

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