All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
To live as one likes is plebian the noble man aspires to order and law.
Interpretation
Living freely is common, but true nobility seeks structure and principles.
This quote by Goethe emphasizes the belief that while many people may seek a life of personal freedom and indulgence, those with noble aspirations aim for a life governed by order, law, and ethical frameworks. It suggests that true greatness comes from adherence to principles rather than mere personal whims.
In practice
During a speech on leadership, one might quote Goethe to discuss the importance of structure in guiding people.
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.
The sun is simple. A sword is simple. A storm is simple. Behind everything simple is a huge tail of complicated.
The issue is not whether there are horrible cases where the penalty seems "right". The real question is whether we will ever design a capital system that reaches only the "right" cases, without dragging in the wrong cases, cases of innocence or cases where death is not proportionate punishment. Slowly, even reluctantly, I have realized the answer to that question is no- we will never get it right.
Curiosity creeps into the houses of the unfortunate and the needy under the name of duty or of pity.
Life is not like water. Things in life don't necessarily flow over the shortest possible route.
You can't have virtue without sin. What I'm after is having my characters' virtues defined by how they operate in a very sinful environment. That's how you test people.
Reason is the cause of our falsification of the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show becoming, passing away, change, they do not lie.
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