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When You Are In Conflict With Someone, There Is One Factor That Can Make The Difference Between Damaging Your Relationship And Deepening It. That Factor Is Attitude. We Don't Get To Know People When They Come To Us; We Must Go To Them To Find Out What They Are Like.

-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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When You Are In

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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When You Are In Conflict With Someone, There Is One Factor That Can Make The Difference Between Damaging Your Relationship And Deepening It. That Factor Is Attitude. We Don't Get To Know People When They Come To Us; We Must Go To Them To Find Out What They Are Like.

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When We Treat Man As He Is, We Make Him Worse Than He Is; When We Treat Him As If He Already Were What He Potentially Could Be, We Make Him What He Should Be.

Is Not The Core Of Nature In The Heart Of Man?

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The Happy Do Not Believe In Miracles.

Believe In Miracles

Mastery Is Proven Only In Limitation, And Law Alone Can Give Us Freedom.

To Rule Is Easy, To Govern Difficult.

Man Must Strive, And Striving He Must Err.

People Should Talk Less And Draw More. Personally, I Would Like To Renounce Speech Altogether And, Like Organic Nature, Communicate Everything I Have To Say Visually.

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

A State Of True And Universal Tolerance Is Best Ensured By Leaving Alone The Peculiarities Of Men And Peoples.

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

If You Want To Get Pleasure Out Of Life, You Must Attach Value To The World.

The Safest Thing Is Always To Try To Convert Everything That Is In Us And Around Us Into Action; Let The Others Talk And Argue About It As They Please.

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.

Nine Requisites For Contented Living: Health Enough To Make Work A Pleasure. Wealth Enough To Support Your Needs. Strength To Battle With Difficulties And Overcome Them. Grace Enough To Confess Your Sins And Forsake Them. Patience Enough To Toil Until Some Good Is Accomplished. Charity Enough To See Some Good In Your Neighbor. Love Enough To Move You To Be Useful And Helpful To Others. Faith Enough To Make Real The Things Of God. Hope Enough To Remove All Anxious Fears Concerning The Future.

Our Earthly Ball A Peopled Garden.

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

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

We Have Time Enough If We But Use It Aright

Oral Delivery Aims At Persuasion And Making The Listener Believe They Are Converted. Few Persons Are Capable Of Being Convinced The Majority Allow Themselves To Be Persuaded.

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.

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

Shakespeare Is Dangerous To Young Poets; They Cannot But Reproduce Him, While They Fancy That They Produce Themselves.

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

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

I Do Not Speak Of What I Cannot Praise.

A Useless Life Is An Early Death. [ger., Ein Unnutz Leben Ist Ein Fruher Tod.]

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.

The Greater The Knowledge, The Greater The Doubt.

The Evil One Has Left, The Evil Ones Remain.

Dauer In Wechsel. Duration In Change.

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

Love Each Other

A Man Must Cling To The Belief That The Incomprehensible Is Comprehensible; Otherwise He Would Not Try To Fathom It.

It's True That Nothing In This World Makes Us So Necessary To Others As The Affection We Have For Them.

A Lot Of People Do Not Care About Your Money Until Nearly Penniless. They Also Do So With Time

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.

Beautiful Is Greater Than Good, For It Includes The Good.

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

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

People Do Not Mind Their Faults Being Spread Out Before Them, But They Become Impatient If Called On To Give Them Up.

The Ground That A Good Man Treads Is Hallowed.

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.

There Is Nothing More Frightful Than Ignorance In Action.

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.

Happy Is It, Indeed, For Me That My Heart Is Capable Of Feeling The Same Simple And Innocent Pleasure As The Peasant Whose Table Is Covered With Food Of His Own Rearing, And Who Not Only Enjoys His Meal, But Remembers With Delight The Happy Days And Sunny Mornings When He Planted It, The Soft Evenings When He Watered It, And The Pleasure He Experienced In Watching Its Daily Growth.

One That Does Not Think To Highly Of Himself Is More Than He Thinks.

The Highest Goal That Man Can Achieve Is Amazement.

Let Us Live, While We Are Alive!

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

In Art, The Best Is Good Enough.

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.

Every Man Must Form Himself As A Particular Being, Seeking, However, To Attain That General Idea Of Which All Mankind Are Constituents.

Without My Attempts In Natural Science, I Should Never Have Learned To Know Mankind Such As It Is. In Nothing Else Can We So Closely Approach Pure Contemplation And Thought, So Closely Observe The Errors Of The Senses And Of The Understanding, The Weak And Strong Points Of Character.

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.

Reasonable Men Are The Best Dictionaries Of Conversation.

We See Only What We Know.

Do People Conform To The Instructions Of Us Old Ones? Each Thinks He Must Know Best About Himself, And Thus Many Are Lost Entirely.

Men Are So Constituted That Every One Undertakes What He Sees Another Successful In, Whether He Has Aptitude For It Or Not.

Thus I Reel From Desire To Fulfillment And In Fulfillment Languish For Desire.

I Consider Him Of No Account Who Esteems Himself Just As The Popular Breath May Chance To Raise Him.

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

The Little That Is Completed, Vanishes From The Sight Of One Who Looks Forward To What Is Still To Do.

Our Wishes Are Presentiments Of The Abilities That Lie In Us, Harbingers Of What We Will Be Able To Accomplish.

Music Is Liquid Architecture; Architecture Is Frozen Music.

It Is So Hard That One Cannot Really Have Confidence In Doctors And Yet Cannot Do Without Them.

Have Confidence

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 Better To Be Deceived By One's Friends Than To Deceive Them.

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.

Giving Is The Business Of The Rich.

We Cannot And Must Not Get Rid Of Nor Deny Our Characteristics. But We Can Give Them Shape And Direction.

A True German Can't Stand The French, Yet Willingly He Drinks Their Wines.

Hatred Is Partial, But Love Is Still More So.

To Accept Good Advice Is But To Increase One's Own Ability.

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

Sensitive Person

The Right Man Is The One Who Seizes The Moment.

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

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

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

Tolerance Should Really Only Be A Passing Attitude: It Should Lead To Appreciation. To Tolerate Is To Offend.

Normally, People Believe That, If They Hear Just Words, That These Words Must Lead To Some Thought.

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.

Talents Are Nurtured Best In Solitude, But Character On Life's Tempestuous Seas!

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.

To Live In A Great Idea Means To Treat The Impossible As Though It Were Possible. It Is Just The Same With A Strong Character; And When An Idea And A Character Meet, Things Arise Which Fill The World With Wonder For Thousands Of Years.

Don't Give Us Your Doubts, Gives Us Your Certainties, For We Have Doubts Enough Of Our Own.

People Will Allow Their Faults To Be Shown Them; They Will Let Themselves Be Punished For Them; They Will Patiently Endure Many Things Because Of Them; They Only Become Impatient When They Have To Lay Them Aside.

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.

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.

A Person Is Never Happy Till Their Vague Strivings Has Itself Marked Out Its Proper Limitations.

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

What By A Straight Path Cannot Be Reached By Crooked Ways Is Never Won.

It Is The Color Closest To Light. In Its Utmost Purity It Always Implies The Nature Of Brightness And Has A Cheerful, Serene, Gently Stimulating Character. Hence, Experience Teaches Us That Yellow Makes A Thoroughly Warm And Comforting Impression.

To Be Pleased With One's Limits Is A Wretched State.

Knowing Who You Are

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.

Nature Goes Her Own Way, And All That To Us Seems An Exception Is Really According To Order.

The Society Of Women Is The Element Of Good Manners.

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

People Always Fancy That We Must Become Old To Become Wise; But, In Truth, As Years Advance, It Is Hard To Keep Ourselves As Wise As We Were.

In The Colored Reflection We Have Life.

Why Go Further And Further, Look, Happiness Is Right Here. Learn How To Grab Hold Of Luck, For Luck Is Always There.

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

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

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

Three Things Are To Be Looked To In A Building: That It Stand On The Right Spot; That It Is Securely Founded; That It Be Successfully Executed.

It Has Been Said That Figures Rule The World. Maybe. But I Am Sure That Figures Show Us Whether It Is Being Ruled Well Or Badly.

The Century Is Advanced, But Every Individual Begins Afresh.

Man's Restlessness Makes Him Strive.

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

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

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.

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.

The Man Of Understanding Finds Everything Laughable.

Translators Can Be Considered As Busy Matchmakers Who Praise As Extremely Desirable A Half-veiled Beauty. They Arouse An Irresistible Yearning For The Original.

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

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

Procrastination

Not The Maker Of Plans And Promises, But Rather The One Who Offers Faithful Service In Small Matters. This Is The Person Who Is Most Likely To Achieve What Is Good And Lasting.

Who Is The Wisest Man? He Who Neither Knows Or Wishes For Anything Else Than What Happens.

Truth Is A Torch, But A Terrific One; Therefore We All Try To Reach It With Closed Eyes, Lest We Should Be Scorched.

Plunge Boldly Into The Thick Of Life!

All The Knowledge I Possess Everyone Else Can Acquire, But My Heart Is All My Own.

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

Wild Dreams Torment Me As I Lie. And Though A God Lives In My Heart, Though All My Power Waken At His Word, Though He Can Move My Every Inmost Part - Yet Nothing In The Outer World Is Stirred. Thus By Existence Tortured And Oppressed I Crave For Death, I Long For Rest.

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

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

All Poetry Is Supposed To Be Instructive But In An Unnoticeable Manner; It Is Supposed To Make Us Aware Of What It Would Be Valuable To Instruct Ourselves In; We Must Deduce The Lesson On Our Own, Just As With Life.

The Follies Of The Wise Man Are Known To Himself, But Hidden From The World.

We Are Our Own Devils; We Drive Ourselves Out Of Our Edens.

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

People May Live As Much Retired From The World As They Please; But Sooner Or Later, Before They Are Aware, They Will Find Themselves Debtor Or Creditor To Somebody.

What A Mighty Spirit In A Narrow Bosom. [ger., Welch' Hoher Geist In Einer Engen Brust.]

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.

Everyone Believes In His Youth That The World Really Began With Him, And That All Merely Exists For His Sake.

One Must Be Something To Be Able To Do Something.

Human Condition

Great Possessions And Great Want Of Them Are Both Strong Temptations.

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

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

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

What We Agree With Leaves Us Inactive, But Contradiction Makes Us Productive.

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

Words Express Neither Objects Nor Ourselves.

Napoleon For The Sake Of A Good Name Broke In Pieces Half The World.

Since You Know Me And My Destiny Only Too Well, You Probably Also Know What Attracts Me To All Unfortunate People.

Life Is Too Short To Drink Bad Wine.

Life Is Too Short

The Few Of Understanding, Vision Rare, Who Veiled Not From The Herd Their Hearts, But Tried, Poor Generous Fools, To Lay Their Feelings Bare, Them Have Men Always Burnt And Crucified.

All Intelligent Thoughts Have Already Been Thought; What Is Necessary Is Only To Try To Think Them Again.

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

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

Create, Artist, Do Not Talk.

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

Only The Soul That Loves Is Happy

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

No Sacred Fane Requires Us To Submit To Insult.

Everybody Wants To Be Somebody; Nobody Wants To Grow.

Merely To Breathe Freely Does Not Mean To Live.

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

However Often We Turn To It [the Koran] At First Disgusting Us Each Time Afresh, It Soon Attracts, Astounds, And In The End Enforces Our Reverence. . . . Its Style, In Accordance With Its Contents And Aim Is Stern, Grand, Terrible - Ever And Anon Truly Sublime - Thus This Book Will Go On Exercising Through All Ages A Most Potent Influence.

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.

The Artist Alone Sees Spirits. But After He Has Told Of Their Appearing To Him, Everybody Sees Them.

If Youth Is A Fault, It Is One That One Gets Rid Of Soon Enough.

It Is Better To Be Doing The Most Insignificant Thing Than To Reckon Even A Half-hour Insignificant.

Insignificant Things

Solitude Is Fine When You Are At Peace With Yourself And Have Something Definite To Do.

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.

Religion Is Not In Want Of Art; It Rests On Its Own Majesty.

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

Mysteries Are Not Necessarily Miracles.

If You Lay Duties Upon People And Give Them No Rights, You Must Pay Them Well.

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

The Best Genius Is That Which Absorbs And Assimilates Everything Without Doing The Least Violence To Its Fundamental Destiny.

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

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

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

All Professional Men Are Handicapped By Not Being Allowed To Ignore Things Which Are Useless.

One Never Learns To Understand Truly Anything But What One Loves.

The Person Of Analytic Or Critical Intellect Finds Something Ridiculous In Everything. The Person Of Synthetic Or Constructive Intellect, In Almost Nothing.

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

The Rogue Has Everywhere The Advantage.

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.

It Is Impossible That Beauty Should Ever Distinctly Appreciate Itself.

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 Best Slave Is The One Who Thinks He Is Free.

Passions Are Vices Or Virtues To Their Highest Powers.

There Is No Patriotic Art And No Patriotic Science.

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

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

Misunderstandings And Neglect Create More Confusion In This World Than Trickery And Malice. At Any Rate, The Last Two Are Certainly Much Less Frequent.

Only Law Can Give Us Freedom.

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

Everything That Frees Our Spirit Without Giving Us Control Of Ourselves Is Ruinous.

Judge A Man's Character By What He Finds Ridiculous.

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

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

Unrest And Uncertainty Are Our Lot.

We Who Didn't Inherit Political Power Nor Are Made To Acquire Riches Like Nothing Better Than That Which Expands And Solidifies The Power Of The Spirit.

Fresh Activity Is The Only Means Of Overcoming Adversity.

Deeply Earnest And Thoughtful People Stand On Shaky Footing With The Public.

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

Finding Happiness

Self Knowledge Is Best Learned Not By Contemplation, But By Action.

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

Ingratitude Is Always A Kind Of Weakness. I Have Never Known Men Of Ability To Be Ungrateful.

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