Tag: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Everyone believes in his youth that the world really began with him, and that all merely exists for his sake.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If you lay duties upon people and give them no rights, you must pay them well.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What I possess, seems far away to me, and what is gone becomes reality.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Maybe I shouldn’t have included this one.  I think he’s saying that we live in the past.  But I’m not even sure.  But it sounds so wise how could I leave it out! 

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We all of us live upon the past, and through the past we are destroyed.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Men in a state of nature, uncivilized nations, children, have a great fondness for colors in their utmost brightness, and especially for yellow-red.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Well, I like yellow and blue a lot.  Child or barbarian?  Either suits me.

photog

He alone is great and happy who fills his own station of independence, and has neither to command nor to obey.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We often feel that we lack something, and seem to see that very quality in someone else, promptly attributing all our own qualities to him too, and a kind of ideal contentment as well. And so the happy mortal is a model of complete perfection—which we have ourselves created.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is the intermixing of different genres.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe