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Maxims and Reflections

Throughout his long, hectic and astonishingly varied life, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) would jot down his passing thoughts on theatre programmes, visiting cards, draft manuscripts and even bills … Goethe was probably the last true ‘Renaissance

Characters

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (15)Johann Wolfgang Goethe (5)

Our passions are, in truth, like the phoenix. When the old one burns away, the new one rises out of its ashes at once.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, amazon.com

Passion Phoenix Metaphor Desire

No one knows the extent of his own powers til he has tested them.

— Johann Wolfgang Goethe, amazon.com

strategy

All our learned teachers and educators agree that children do not know why they want what they want; but no one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze, and like children, do know not where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they…

— Johann Wolfgang Goethe, amazon.com

strategy

General notions and great conceit are always potetial creators of shock misfortune.

— Johann Wolfgang Goethe, amazon.com

strategy

Some people keep knocking at the wall with a hammer and imagine they are hitting the nail on the head every time.

— Johann Wolfgang Goethe, amazon.com

strategy

One can foist anything in society, except what will have consequences.

— Johann Wolfgang Goethe, amazon.com

strategy

Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, amazon.com

Life

Is not ill-humour in fact our own inner displeasure at our own unworthiness, a feeling of discontent with ourselves, which is always related to envy, which in turn is stirred up by foolish vanity? We see people who are happy and whose happiness is not of our making, and we cannot stand it.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, amazon.com

Life

Misunderstandings and lethargy perhaps lead to more complications in the affairs of the world than trickery and wickedness. At least, the two latter are surely more common.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, amazon.com

Life

Tell me whom you consort with and I will tell you who you are; if I know how you spend your time, then I know what might become of you.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, amazon.com

Life

To communicate is natural; to accept what is communicated is an acquired art.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, amazon.com

Life

Absolute activity, of whatever kind, ultimately leads to bankruptcy.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, amazon.com

Life

If monkeys could reach the point of being bored, they could turn into human beings.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, amazon.com

Life

There is no situation which cannot be ennobled by work or else by endurance.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, amazon.com

Life

Certain books are apparently written not so that we may learn from them but to demonstrate the fact that the author knew something.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, amazon.com

Life Writing

The greatest respect an author can have for his public is never to produce what is expected but what he himself considers right and useful for whatever stage of intellectual development have been reached by himself and others.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, amazon.com

Life Writing

Art deals with what is hard to bear and with what is good.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, amazon.com

Life Writing

Behavior is a mirror in which everyone shows his image.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, amazon.com

Life

Advance years bring greater trials.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, amazon.com

Life

Surely the world is quite full enough of riddles for us not to need to turn the simplest phenomena into riddles too?

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, amazon.com

Life

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