"Words are mere sound and smoke, dimming..." - Quote by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Words are mere sound and smoke, dimming the heavenly light.
More by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes what we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt.”
“The connoisseur of art must be able to appreciate what is simply beautiful, but the common run of people is satisfied with ornament.”
“For the nature of a women is closely allied to art.[Ger., Denn das Naturell der FrauenIst so nah mit Kunst verwandt.]”
More on Language
“If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.”
“Weasel words from mollycoddles will never do when the day demands prophetic clarity from greathearts. Manly men must emerge for this hour of trial.”
“In India, 'cold weather' is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy.”
More on Truth
“The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.”
“There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective 'knowing'; and the more affects we allow to speak about one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our 'concept' of this thing, our 'objectivity,' be.”
“Sometimes it’s more noble to tell a small lie than to deliver a painful truth.”