All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
All men would be masters of others, and no man is lord of himself.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the desire for power over others while highlighting the internal struggle of self-mastery.
Goethe's quote suggests that people often seek to control others rather than achieve control over their own lives and emotions. It poses a philosophical reflection on the nature of power and mastery, indicating that true lordship comes from within, and without self-governance, any attempt to dominate others is ultimately flawed.
In practice
In a discussion about leadership styles, one might reference this quote to illustrate the importance of self-discipline.
All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.
There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.
I am amazed to see how deliberately I have entangled myself step by step. To have seen my position so clearly, and yet to have acted so like a child!
Seldom in the business and transactions of ordinary life, do we find the sympathy we want.
Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.
Personally, I always wondered about authors and celebrities who loudly declared there was no God. It was usually when they were healthy and popular and being listened to by crowds. What happens, I wondered, in the quiet moments before death? By then, they have lost the stage, the world has moved on. If suddenly, in their last gasping moments, through fear, a vision, a late enlightenment, they change their minds about God, who would know?
One man's 'magic' is another man's engineering. 'Supernatural' is a null word.
Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle. The modern industrial proletariat does not belong to the category of such classes.
Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry the progress, ignorance the end.
Ugly is attractive, ugly is exciting. Maybe because it is newer. The investigation of ugliness is, to me, more interesting than the bourgeois idea of beauty. And why? Because ugly is human.
When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find himself a good and sufficient reason for going.
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