I nothing had, and yet enough for youth--Joy in Illusion, ardent thirst for Truth. Give unrestrained, the old emotion, The bliss that touched the verge of pain, The strength of Hate, Love's deep devotion,--O, give me back my youth again!
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThere is no surer method of evading the world than by following Art, and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by Art.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheAfter all, poets shouldn't be their own interpreters and shouldn't carefully dissect their poems into everyday prose; that would mean the end of being poets. Poets send their creations into the world, it is up to the reader, the aesthetician, and the critic to determine what they wanted to say with their creations.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThree things are to be looked to in a building: that it stand on the right spot; that it is securely founded; that it be successfully executed.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheI have never looked at foreign countries or gone there but with the purpose of getting to know the general human qualities that are spread all over the earth in very different forms, and then to find these qualities again in my own country and to recognize and to further them.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe