When scholars study a thing, they strive to kill it first, if it’s alive; then they have the parts and they’ve lost the whole, for the link that’s missing was the living soul.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHEWhen scholars study a thing, they strive to kill it first, if it’s alive; then they have the parts and they’ve lost the whole, for the link that’s missing was the living soul.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHETreat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHEAll that is transitory is but a metaphor.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHEOne never goes so far as when one doesn’t know where one is going.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHEWe 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 GOETHEEverything transitory is but an image.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHEThe deed is everything; the fame is nothing.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHEThe greatest evil that can befall man is that he should come to think ill of himself.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHEThere are two things children should get from their parents: roots and wings.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHEHe who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHEThe heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHEA person hears only what they understand.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHELove is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHEOblivion is full of people who allow the opinions of others to overrule their belief in themselves.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHEIf any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHEWe know accurately only when we know little; doubt grows with knowledge.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE