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.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheArt is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome. Every beginning is cheerful: the threshold is the place of expectation.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThe finished man, you know, is difficult to please; a growing mind will ever show you gratitude. --Faust 1, lines 182-3
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheSolitude is fine when you are at peace with yourself and have something definite to do.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheIf we examine every stage of our lives, we find that from our first breath to our last we are under the constraint of circumstances. And yet we still possess the greatest of all freedoms, the power of developing our innermost selves in harmony with the moral order of the universe, and so winning peace of heart whatever obstacles we meet.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe