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 Copy Share Image
But what is your duty? What the day demands. [Ger., Was aber ist deine Pflicht? Die Forderung des Tages.] — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
If you are to accomplish all that one demands of you, you must overestimate your own worth. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
To be sure, a good work of art can and will have moral consequences, but to demand of the artists moral intentions,… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Truth is contrary to our nature, not so error, and this for a very simple reason: truth demands that we should recognize… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
One is never satisfied with a portrait of persons whom one knows. That is why I have always pitied portraitists. One demands… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
No one can take from us the joy of the first becoming aware of something, the so-called discovery. But if we also… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Continue to make the demands of the day your immediate concern, and take occasion to test the purity of your hearts and… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
All ages have said and repeated that one should strive to know one's self. This is a strange demand which no one… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share
I never believed in trying to do anything. Whatever I set out to do I found I had already accomplished. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share
All lyrical work must, as a whole, be perfectly intelligible, but in some particulars a little unintelligible. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share
We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share
It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share
The connoisseur of art must be able to appreciate what is simply beautiful, but the common run of people is satisfied with ornament — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Copy Share
Let us not dream that reason can ever be popular. Passions, emotions, may be made popular; but reason remains ever the property of an… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share
Just begin and the mind grows heated; continue, and the task will be completed! — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share
I look upon all four Gospels as thoroughly genuine, for there shines forth from them the reflected splendor of a sublimity proceeding from Jesus… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share
Whatever we may say against collections, which present authors in a disjointed form, they nevertheless bring about many excellent results. We are not always… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share