There are situations in which hope and fear run together, in which they mutually destroy one another and lose themselves in dull indifference.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheNature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThe Primal Plant is going be the strangest creature in the world, which Nature herself must envy me. With this model and the key to it, it will be possible to go on for ever inventing plants and know that their existence is logical; that is to say, if they do not actually exist, they could, for they are not the shadowy phantoms of a vain imagination, but possess an inner necessity and truth. The same law will be applicable to all other living organisms.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheIt is commonly the personal character of a writer which gives him his public significance. It is not imparted by his genius. Napoleon said of Corneille, "Were he living I would make him a king;" but he did not read him. He read Racine, yet he said nothing of the kind of Racine.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe