The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Art is long, life is short; judgement difficult, opportunity transient. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Certain faults are necessary for the existence of the individual. We would resent it if old friends were to get rid of… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Voluntary dependence is the wonderful form of existence, and how could that be possible without love? — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
If I work incessantly to the last, nature owes me another form of existence when the present one collapses. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Man supposes that he directs his life and governs his actions, when his existence is irretrievably under the control of destiny — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Yes! to this thought I hold with firm persistence; The last result of wisdom stamps it true; He only earns his freedom… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
And I like those authors best whose scenes describe my own situation in life-- and the friends who are about me whose… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Wild dreams torment me as I lie. And though a god lives in my heart, though all my power waken at his… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
To me the external existence of my soul is proved from my idea of activity. If I work incessantly until my death,… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Vanity is a desire of personal glory, the wish to be appreciated, honoured, and run after, not because of one's personal qualities,… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
When I consider the narrow limits within which our active and inquiring faculties are confined; when I see how all our energies… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
The Primal Plant is going be the strangest creature in the world, which Nature herself must envy me. With this model and the key to it, it will be possible to go on for ever inventing plants and know that their existence is logical; that is to say, if they do not actually exist, they could, for they are not… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share
We cannot too soon convince ourselves how easily we may be dispensed with in the world. What important personages we imagine ourselves… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
When we see the many grave-stones which have fallen in, which have been defaced by the footsteps of the congregation, which lie buried under the ruins of the churches, that have themselves crumbled together over them; we may fancy the life after death to be as a second life, into which man enters in the figure, or the picture or… — 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