All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
The sun had, in the meanwhile, sunk behind the Ettersberg. We felt in the wood the chill of the evening, and drove all the quicker to Wiemar, and to Goethe's house. Goethe urged me to go in with him for a while, and I did so. He was in an extremely engaging mood. He talked a great deal about his theory of colors, and of his obstinate opponents; remarking that he was sure that he had done something in this science.
Interpretation
Goethe reflects on the importance of creativity and the pursuit of knowledge in the face of skepticism.
In this quote, Goethe discusses his experiences and perspectives on art and science, particularly his theory of colors. He emphasizes the significance of engaging with creativity and understanding in a world where one's ideas may be challenged, highlighting the passion and determination that drive artistic and scientific inquiry.
In practice
In a lecture on art theory, one might quote Goethe to emphasize the artist's role in engaging with scientific concepts.
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.
Toward his critics, the artist harbors a defensive ace: knowledge that the future will erase the present.
Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse.
A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.
There is something about riding a unicorn, for those people who still can, which is unlike any other experience: exhilarating, and intoxicating, and fine.
I often conduct an orchestra in my sleep; my orchestras are so huge that the back desks of the violas vanish into the horizon. And everything is so wonderful.
I wrote poetry from the time I could write. That was the only way I could begin to express who I was but the poems didn't make sense to my teachers. They didn't rhyme. They were about the wind sounds, the planets' motions, never about who I was or how I felt. I didn't think I felt anything. I was this mind more than a body or a heart. My mind photographing the stars, hearing the wind.
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