"Nature understands no jesting. She is always true, always serious, always severe. She is always right, and the errors are always those of man."
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quotes (page 69 of 88)
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"If we meet someone who owes us a debt of gratitude, we remember the fact at once. How often we can meet someone to whom we owe a debt of gratitude without thinking about it at all!"
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"It seems to me that every phenomenon, every fact, itself is the really interesting object. Whoever explains it, or connects it with other events, usually only amuses himself or makes sport of us, as, for instance, the naturalist or historian. But a single action or event is interesting, not because it is explainable, but because it is true."
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"Everything we do has a result. But that which is right and prudent does not always lead to good, nor the contrary to what is bad."
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"To live as one likes is plebian the noble man aspires to order and law."
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"There is not a single outward mark of courtesy that does not have a deep moral basis."
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"It is one of Heaven's best gifts to hold such a dear creature in one's arms."
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"The modern age has a false sense of superiority, because of the great mass of data at its disposal. But the valid criterion of distinction is rather the extent to which man knows how to form and master the material at his command."
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"Whoever strenuously endeavors, him we can rescue."
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"Happy is it, indeed, for me that my heart is capable of feeling the same simple and innocent pleasure as the peasant whose table is covered with food of his own rearing, and who not only enjoys his meal, but remembers with delight the happy days and sunny mornings when he planted it, the soft evenings when he watered it, and the pleasure he experienced in watching its daily growth."
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"Men in a state of nature, uncivilized nations, children, have a great fondness for colors in their utmost brightness, and especially for yellow-red."
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"Conscience is the virtue of the observers not the agents of action"
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"To like things like, whatever one may ail; There is certain help."
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"Just as, out of habit, one consults a run-down clock as though it were still going, so too one may look at the face of a beautiful woman as though he still loved her."
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"Everything is simpler than one can imagine, and yet complicated and inter-twined beyond comprehension."
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"Paternity is based anyhow only upon conviction: I am convinced, therefore, I am the father."
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"All one needs to do is declare oneself free and one will immediately feel dependent. If you dare to declare yourself dependent, you feel independent."
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"There is nothing outside of us that is not at the same time in us, and as the external world has its colors the eye, too, has colors."
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"If we take people only as they are, then we make them worse; if we treat them as if they were what they should be, then we bring them to where they can be brought."
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"To become aware in time when young of the advantages of age; to maintain the advantages of youth in old age: both are pure fortune."
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