"Since you know me and my destiny only too well, you probably also know what attracts me to all unfortunate people."
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quotes (page 44 of 88)
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"After all, poets shouldn't be their own interpreters and shouldn't carefully dissect their poems into everyday prose; that would mean the end of being poets. Poets send their creations into the world, it is up to the reader, the aesthetician, and the critic to determine what they wanted to say with their creations."
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"Character calls forth character."
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"Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect, that every one should study, by all methods, to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things. ...For this reason, one ought every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words."
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"The clever reader who is capable or reading between these lines what does not stand written in them but is nevertheless implied will be able to form some conception."
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"Several classical sayings that one likes to repeat had quite a different meaning from the ones later times attributed to them."
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"When an idea is wanting, a word can always be found to take its place."
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"The confidant of my vices is my master, though he were my valet."
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"The man who masters himself is delivered from the force that binds all creatures."
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"No skill or art is needed to grow old; the trick is to endure it."
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"How marvelous, wide and broad is my Inheritance! Time is my property, my estate is time."
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"Whoso is content with pure experience and acts upon it has enough of truth."
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"The history of mankind is his character."
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"Always to distrust is an error, as well as always to trust."
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"Yes, my love, who soever lives, loses, . . . but he also wins. [Ger., Ja, meine Liebe, wer lebt, verliebt . . . aber er gewinnt auch.]"
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"Nature is, after all, the only book that offers important content on every page."
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"All of us, just because we are able to talk, also believe we are able to talk about language."
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"What right those who govern have to govern they don't question, they just govern. Whether the people have a right to depose them that doesn't concern them. All they are concerned with is that the people will not be tempted to depose them."
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"To be sure, a good work of art can and will have moral consequences, but to demand of the artists moral intentions, means ruiningtheir craft."
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"True happiness springs from moderation. [Ger., Aus Massigkeit entspringt ein reines Gluck.]"
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