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Ability
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Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.
-Johann von Goethe
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People are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake what they see others do, whether they have an aptitude for it or not.
-Johann von Goethe
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The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.
-Johann von Goethe
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The really unhappy person is the one who leaves undone what they can do, and starts doing what they don't understand; no wonder they come to grief.
-Johann von Goethe
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Absence
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The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.
-Johann von Goethe
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Action(s)
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Fresh activity is the only means of overcoming adversity.
-Johann von Goethe
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Before you can do something you must first be something.
-Johann von Goethe
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How shall we learn to know ourselves? By reflection? Never; but only through action. Strive to do thy duty; then you shall know what is in thee.
-Johann von Goethe
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The deed is everything, the glory is naught.
-Johann von Goethe
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Then indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting o'er lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; What you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
-Johann von Goethe
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Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
-Johann von Goethe
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When all is said the greatest action is to limit and isolate one's self.
-Johann von Goethe
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Adversity
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The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.
-Johann von Goethe
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Age
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Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.
-Johann von Goethe
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We must not take the faults of our youth with us into old age, for age brings along its own defects.
-Johann von Goethe
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The older we get the more we must limit ourselves if we wish to be active.
-Johann von Goethe
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It is only necessary to grow old to become more charitable and even indulgent. I see no fault committed by others that I have not committed myself.
-Johann von Goethe
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Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years.
-Johann von Goethe
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Agreement
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One can be very happy without demanding that others agree with them.
-Johann von Goethe
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Apathy
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God could cause us considerable embarrassment by revealing all the secrets of nature to us: we should not know what to do for sheer apathy and boredom.
-Johann von Goethe, source cited: Memoirs, by Riemer
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Aristocracy
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All that is noble is in itself of a quiet nature, and appears to sleep until it is aroused and summoned forth by contrast.
-Johann von Goethe
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Art
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The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.
-Johann von Goethe
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The highest problem of any art is to cause by appearance the illusion of a higher reality.
-Johann von Goethe
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Personality is everything in art and poetry.
-Johann von Goethe
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One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is when we see its separate forms jumbled together.
-Johann von Goethe
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Books by and about Johann von Goethe