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Art
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Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient.
-Johann von Goethe
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Authors & Writing
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A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.
-Johann von Goethe
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If any man wishes to write a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts.
-Johann von Goethe
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Every author in some degree portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.
-Johann von Goethe
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He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line.
-Johann von Goethe
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Beauty
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Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.
-Johann von Goethe
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Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself.
-Johann von Goethe
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Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.
-Johann von Goethe
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Belief
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He is dead in this world who has no belief in another.
-Johann von Goethe
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We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to erase them.
-Johann von Goethe
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If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.
-Johann von Goethe
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Birds
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Everything perfect in its kind has to transcend its own kind, it must become something different and incomparable. In some notes the nightingale is still a bird; then it rises above its class and seems to suggest to every winged creature what singing is truly like.
-Johann von Goethe, Elective Affinities, bk. 2, ch. 9, from Ottilie
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Books
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The decline in literature indicates a decline in the nation. The two keep pace in their downward tendency.
-Johann von Goethe
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Bravery
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Courage and modesty are the most unequivocal of virtues, for they are of a kind that hypocrisy cannot imitate; they too have this quality in common, that they are expressed by the same color.
-Johann von Goethe
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Wealth lost is something lost, honor lost is something lost: Courage lost all is lost.
-Johann von Goethe
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Rest not. Life is sweeping by; go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time.
-Johann von Goethe
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Challenges
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Mountains cannot be surmounted except by winding paths.
-Johann von Goethe
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The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.
-Johann von Goethe
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Change
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Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.
-Johann von Goethe
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What I possess I would gladly retain. Change amuses the mind, yet scarcely profits.
-Johann von Goethe
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Human beings, by change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.
-Johann von Goethe
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Character
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Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.
-Johann von Goethe
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Talents are best nurtured in solitude. Character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.
-Johann von Goethe
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Character develops itself in the stream of life.
-Johann von Goethe
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The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim.
-Johann von Goethe
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Books by and about Johann von Goethe