Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann WolfgangGoethetə/; German: ; 28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings by him exist...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth28 August 1749
CountryGermany
Sowing is not as difficult as reaping.
If the world does improve on the whole, yet youth must always begin anew, and go through the stages of culture from the beginning.
He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line.
All men would be masters of others, and no man is lord of himself.
Whatever Nature undertakes, she can only accomplish it in a sequence. She never makes a leap.
Nature! We are enveloped and embraced by her, incapable of emerging from her and incapable of entering her more deeply. Unbidden and unwarned, she receives us into the circuits of her dance, drifting onward with us herself, until we grow tired and drop from her arms.
Nature is the living, visible garment of God.
Assuredly there is no more lovely worship of God than that for which no image is required, but which springs up in our breast spontaneously when nature speaks to the soul, and the soul speaks to nature face to face.
The spectacle of Nature is always new, for she is always renewing the spectators. Life is her most exquisite invention; and death is her expert contrivance to get plenty of life.
Some people spend the day in complaining of a headache, and the night in drinking the wine that gives it.
Time does not relinquish its rights, either over human beings or over mountains.
Don't dissipate your powers; strive to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it will surely repent of every ill-judged outlay.
Habit is a man's sole comfort. We dislike doing without even unpleasant things to which we have become accustomed.
One ought, everyday, to hear a song, read a fine poem, and, if possible, to speak a few reasonable words.