Book detail: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.
This book presents a series of conversations between Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Johann Peter Eckermann, providing a glimpse into Goethe's intellectual and philosophical musings. The discussions cover a wide range of topics, including literature, art, and personal reflections.
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“A man of talent is not born to be left to himself, but to devote himself to art and good masters who will make something of him.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“I hate every violent overthrow, because as much is destroyed as is gained by it.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Lord Byron is only great as a poet; as soon as he reflects he is a child.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“The artist has a twofold relation to nature; he is at once her master and her slave.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“The world remains ever the same.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Many young painters would never have taken their pencils in hand if they could have felt, known, and understood, early enough, what really produced a master like Raphael.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“The misfortune in the state is, that nobody can enjoy life in peace, but that everybody must govern; and in art, that nobody will enjoy what has been produced, but that every one wants to reproduce on his own account.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Children, like dogs, have so sharp and fine a scent that they detect and hunt out everything--the bad before all the rest. They also know well enough how this or that friend stands with their parents; and as they practice no dissimulation whatever, they serve as excellent barometers by which to observe the degree of favor or disfavor at which we stand with their parents.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Mannerism is always longing to have done, and has no true enjoyment in work. A genuine, really great talent, on the other hand, has its greatest happiness in execution.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“We must be young to do great things.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“I believe in God and in nature and in the triumph of good over evil.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Without my attempts in natural science, I should never have learned to know mankind such as it is. In nothing else can we so closely approach pure contemplation and thought, so closely observe the errors of the senses and of the understanding, the weak and strong points of character.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Taste is only to be educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably good but of the truly excellent.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“What must the English and French think of the language of our philosophers when we Germans do not understand it ourselves?”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Every situation--nay, every moment--is of infinite worth; for it is the representative of a whole eternity.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“If you have a great work in your head, nothing else thrives near it; all other thoughts are repelled, and the pleasure of life itself is for the time lost.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“What we agree with leaves us inactive, but contradiction makes us productive.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Time is a strange thing. It is a whimsical tyrant, which in every century has a different face for all that one says and does.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Man is a simple being, and however rich, varied, and unfathomable he may be, the cycle of his situations is soon run through.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Women are silver dishes into which we put golden apples.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Everything we do has a result. But that which is right and prudent does not always lead to good, nor the contrary to what is bad.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“There is no permanence in doubt; it incites the mind to closer inquiry and experiment, from which, if rightly managed, certainty proceeds, and in this alone can man find thorough satisfaction.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Everywhere, we learn only from those whom we love.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“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.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us; and this goes on to the end. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“A great deal may be done by severity, more by love, but most by clear discernment and impartial justice.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“The sun had, in the meanwhile, sunk behind the Ettersberg. We felt in the wood the chill of the evening, and drove all the quicker to Wiemar, and to Goethe's house. Goethe urged me to go in with him for a while, and I did so. He was in an extremely engaging mood. He talked a great deal about his theory of colors, and of his obstinate opponents; remarking that he was sure that he had done something in this science.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“All that is noble is in itself of a quiet nature, and appears to sleep until it is aroused and summoned forth by contrast.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Nature understands no jesting. She is always true, always serious, always severe. She is always right, and the errors are always those of man.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“I have found a paper of mine among some others in which I call architecture 'petrified music.' Really there is something in this; the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of music.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“In the end we retain from our studies only that which we practically apply.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“One must be something, in order to do something.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Do people conform to the instructions of us old ones? Each thinks he must know best about himself, and thus many are lost entirely.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“People are always talking about originality, but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us, and this goes on to the end.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Could we perfect human nature, we might also expect a perfect state of things.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Let him who believes in immortality enjoy his happiness in silence; he has no reason to give himself airs about it.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Nothing is good for a nation but that which arises from its own core and its own general wants, without apish imitation of another.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“People always fancy that we must become old to become wise; but, in truth, as years advance, it is hard to keep ourselves as wise as we were.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“At bottom, no real object is unpoetical, if the poet knows how to use it properly.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere, and at all times, in hundreds and hundreds of men.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“The poet should seize the Particular, and he should, if there be anything sound in it, thus represent the Universal.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Piety, like nobility, has its aristocracy.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“To appear at church every Sunday; to look down upon, and let himself be looked at for an hour by the congregation, is the best means of becoming popular which can be recommended to a young sovereign.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“As soon as any one belongs to a narrow creed in science, every unprejudiced and true perception is gone.”
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann