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
Who is the happiest man? He who is alive to the merit of others, and can rejoice in their enjoyment as if it were his own.
They teach in academies far too many things, and far too much that is useless.
No one as ever completed their apprenticeship.
If a good person does you wrong, act as though you had not noticed it. If we practice and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, soon the wholeworld will be blind and toothless.
As man is, so is his God. And thus is God oft strangely odd.
A state of affairs which leads to daily vexation is not the right state.
Begin by instructing yourself, then you will receive instruction from others.
Everything that frees our spirit without giving us control of ourselves is ruinous.
One should not wish anyone disagreeable conditions of life; but for him who is involved in them by chance, they are touchstones of characters and of the most decisive value to man.
How can we learn self-knowledge? Never by taking thought but rather by action. Try to do your duty and you'll soon discover what you're like.
The most congenial social occasions are those ruled by cheerful deference of each for all.
The highest happiness of man ... is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.
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.
Whatever is the object of a saint's hope is the subject of his prayer.