"Certain books seem to be written, not..." - Quote by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Certain books seem to be written, not that we might learn from them, but in order that we might see how much the author knows.
More by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“Manners form the great charm of women.”
“A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows and rows of natural objects, classified with name and form.”
“A stated truth loses its grace, but a repeated error appears insipid and ridiculous.”
More on Books
“From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.”
“In those days, there was no money to buy books.”
“I remember, when I was a child and wrote poems in little clasped books, I used to kiss the books and put them away tenderly because I had been happy near them, and take them out by turns when I was going from home, to cheer them by the change of air and the pleasure of the new place. This, not for the sake of the verses written in them, and not for the sake of writing more verses in them, but from pure gratitude.”
More on Learning
“I think it’s important to have a good hard failure when you're young. I learned a lot out of that. Because it makes you kind of aware of what can happen to you. Because of it I’ve never had any fear in my whole life when we’ve been near collapse and all of that. I’ve never been afraid. I’ve never had the feeling I couldn’t walk out and get a job doing something.”
“Everybody is teaching Everybody to Love at every moment.”
“I think it will be found that he who speaks with most authority on a given subject is not ignorant of what has been said by his predecessors. He will take his place in a regular order, and substantially add his own knowledge to the knowledge of previous generations.”