War is in truth a disease in w...

War is in truth a disease in which the juices that serve health and maintenance are used for the sole purpose of nourishing something foreign, something at odds with nature.

If you have science and art,

If you have science and art,
You also have religion;
But if you don't have them,
You better have religion.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 03.03.2018 03:03:03 2265 quotes

The bad thing is that thinking...

The bad thing is that thinking about thought doesn't help at all; one has to have it from nature so that the good ideas appear before us like free children of God calling to us: Here we are.

Normally, people believe that,...

Normally, people believe that, if they hear just words, that these words must lead to some thought.

The dignity of art probably ap...

The dignity of art probably appears most eminently with music since it does not have any material that needs to be discounted. Music is all form and content and elevates and ennobles everything that it expresses.

It would not be worth your whi...

It would not be worth your while to reach the age of seventy if all the wisdom of the world were to be foolishness before God.

The greatest happiness for the...

The greatest happiness for the thinking person is to have explored the explorable and to venerate in equanimity that which cannotbe explored.

Every need whose true satisfac...

Every need whose true satisfaction is denied leads by necessity to faith.

All of us, just because we are...

All of us, just because we are able to talk, also believe we are able to talk about language.

The force of a language does n...

The force of a language does not consist of rejecting what is foreign but of swallowing it.

I curse all negative purism th...

I curse all negative purism that tells me not to use a word from another language that either expresses something that my own language cannot or does that in a more delicate manner.

True works of art contain thei...

True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them.

Error is to truth as sleep is ...

Error is to truth as sleep is to waking. I have observed that one turns, as if refreshed, from error back to truth.

A stated truth loses its grace...

A stated truth loses its grace, but a repeated error appears insipid and ridiculous.

Idea and experience will never...

Idea and experience will never coincide in the center; only through art and action are they united.

There are but few who have ide...

There are but few who have ideas and are, at the same time, capable of action. Ideas enlarge but stymie, action enlivens but confines.

That is the way of youth and l...

That is the way of youth and life in general: that we do not understand the strategy until after the campaign is over.

To be sure, a good work of art...

To be sure, a good work of art can and will have moral consequences, but to demand of the artists moral intentions, means ruiningtheir craft.

Artists have a double relation...

Artists have a double relationship towards nature: they are her master and her slave at the same time. They are her slave in so far as they must work with means of this world so as to be understood; her master in so far as they subject these means to their higher goals and make them subservient to them.

What matters in art is not thi...

What matters in art is not thinking but making.