"The society of women is the element of good manners."
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quotes (page 17 of 88)
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"Time is a strange thing. It is a whimsical tyrant, which in every century has a different face for all that one says and does."
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"Not all that is presented to us as history has really happened; and what really happened did not actually happen the way it is presented to us; moreover, what really happened is only a small part of all that happened. Everything in history remains uncertain, the largest events as well as the smallest occurrence."
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"It is not enough to take steps which may someday lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise."
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"True observers of nature, although they may think differently, will still agree that everything that is, everything that is observable as a phenomenon, can only exhibit itself in one of two ways. It is either a primal polarity that is able to unify, or it is a primal unity that is able to divide. The operation of nature consists of splitting the united or uniting the divided; this is the eternal movement of systole and diastole of the heartbeat, the inhalation and exhalation of the world in which we live, act, and exist."
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"Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine"
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"We can really respect a man only if he doesn't always look out for himself."
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"A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise."
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"To accept good advice is but to increase one's own ability."
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"Nature is beneficent. I praise her and all her works. She is silent and wise. She is cunning, but for good ends. She has brought me here and will also lead me away. She may scold me, but she will not hate her work. I trust her."
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"The person who in shaky times also wavers only increases the evil, but the person of firm decision fashions the universe."
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"To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed That can make life a garden."
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"Who are you then?" "I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good."
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"He alone deserves liberty and life who daily must win them anew."
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"If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses."
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"Nature goes her own way, and all that to us seems an exception is really according to order."
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"Character develops itself in the stream of life."
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"What government is the best? That which teaches us to govern ourselves. [Ger., Welche Regierung die beste sei? Diejenige die uns lehrt uns selbst zu regieren.]"
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"Let us live in as small a circle as we will, we are either debtors or creditors before we have had time to look around."
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"The greatest happiness for the thinking person is to have explored the explorable and to venerate in equanimity that which cannotbe explored."
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