Art Quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All our knowledge is symbolic.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There is no patriotic art.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Create, artist, do not talk.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Art is a mediator of the unspeakable.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In art, the best is good enough.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Art will always be art.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The artist has a twofold relation to nature; he is at once her master and her slave.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In every artist there is a touch of audacity without which no talent is conceivable.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Literature decays only as men become more and more corrupt.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The arts are the salt of the earth; as salt relates to food, the arts relate to technology.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature alone is illimitably rich, and nature alone forms the great artist.

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When Nature begins to reveal her open secret to a man, he feels an irresistible longing for her worthiest interpreter, Art.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There is no better deliverance from the world than through art, and a man can form no surer bond with it.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

He who has art and science also has religion, but those who do not have them better have religion.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The work of art may have a moral effect, but to demand moral purpose from the artist is to make him ruin…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Art rests on a kind of religious sense, on a deep, steadfast earnestness; and on this account it unites so readily with…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

He who possesses science and art, Possesses religion as well; He who possesses neither of these, Had better have religion.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Idea and experience will never coincide in the center; only through art and action are they united.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The artist may be well advised to keep his work to himself till it is completed, because no one can readily help…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In all things, to serve from the lowest station upwards is necessary. To restrict yourself to a trade is best. For the…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There are three classes of readers; some enjoy without judgment; others judge without enjoyment; and some there are who judge while they…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Dear me! how long is art! And short is our life! I often know amid the scholar's strife A sinking feeling in…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

By the artist's seizing any one object from nature, that object no longer is part of nature. One can go so far…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The true, prescriptive artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless artist, following blind instinct, after an appearance of naturalness. The one leads…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A great artist... must be shaken by the naked truths that will not be comforted. This divine discontent, this disequilibrium, this state…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Each has his own happiness in his hands, as the artist handles the rude clay he seeks to reshape it into a…

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It is with art as with love: How can a man of the world,with all his distractions, keep the inwardness which an…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“What I have lately said of painting is equally true with respect to poetry. It is only necessary for us to know…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Medicine, and Law, and Philosophy - You've worked your way through every school, Even, God help you, Theology, And sweated at it…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it never Rises from the soul, and sways The heart of every single hearer,…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Give shape, artist! don't talk! Your poem be but a breath.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The highest problem of any art is to cause by appearance the illusion of a higher reality.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

But when all is said, the greatest art is to limit and isolate oneself.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

True art can only spring from the intimate linking of the serious and the playful.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe