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 lay duties upon people and give them no rights, you must pay them well. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
If one mistreats citizens of foreign countries, one infringes upon one's duty toward one's own subjects; for thus one exposes themto the… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
If each one does their duty as an individual and if each one works in their own proper vocation, it will be… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
How can we learn self-knowledge? Never by taking thought but rather by action. Try to do your duty and you'll soon discover… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
How can we know ourselves? Never by reflection, but only through action. Begin at once to do your duty and immediately you… — 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 up to now has measured up to and, strictly considered, no one should. With all their study and effort, people are directed to what is outside, to the world about them, and they are kept busy coming to… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share
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 Image
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 Image
All lyrical work must, as a whole, be perfectly intelligible, but in some particulars a little unintelligible. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image