Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes About Writing
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The style of writing required in the great world is distinguished by a free and daring grace, a careless security, a fine and sharp polish, a delicate and perfect taste; while that fitted for the people is characterized by a vigorous natural fulness, a profound depth of feeling, and an engaging naivete.
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If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.
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Generally speaking, an author's style is a faithful copy of his mind. If you would write a lucid style, let there first be light in your own mind; and if you would write a grand style, you ought to have a grand character.
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The most original of authors are not so because they advance what is new, but more because they know how to say something, as if it had never been said before.
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Writing is busy idleness.
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A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.
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Writing history is a method of getting rid of the past.
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Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.
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We are pantheists when we study nature, polytheists when we write poetry, monotheists in our morality.
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My counsel is, to force nothing, and rather to trifle and sleep away all unproductive days and hours, than on such days to compose something that will afterwards give no pleasure.
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He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line.
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Sin writes histories, goodness is silent. [Ger., Das Uebel macht eine Geschichte und das Gute keine.]
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If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.
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He who would reproach an author for obscurity should look into his own mind to see whether it is quite clear there. In the dusk the plainest writing is illegible.
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Someday someone will write a pathology of experimental physics and bring to light all those swindles which subvert our reason, beguile our judgement and, what is worse, stand in the way of any practical progress. The phenomena must be freed once and for all from their grim torture chamber of empiricism, mechanism, and dogmatism; they must be brought before the jury of man's common sense.
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Sin writes histories, goodness is silent.
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