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
Their is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.
He who seizes the right moment, is the right man
The greatest genius will never be worth much if he pretends to draw exclusively from his own resources.
Only people unable to produce anything themselves feel there is nothing there.
It is better to busy one's self about the smallest thing in the world than to treat a half hour as worthless
The most original authors are not so because they advance what is new, but because they put what they have to say as if it had never been said before
The destiny of any nation at any given time depends on the opinions of its young men under five-and-twenty
The highest happiness of man is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.
Life teaches us to be less harsh with ourselves than with others
I find the great thing in this world is, not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.
A collection of anecdotes and maxims is the greatest of treasures for the man of the world, for he knows how to intersperse conversation with the former in fit places, and to recollect the latter on proper occasions
I am not omniscient, but much is known to me.
He who does not feel his friends to be the world to him, does not deserve that the world should hear of him.
Individuality seems to be Nature's whole aim -- and she cares nothing for individuals.