Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Art Quotations

The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.

The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.

It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.

There is no art in turning a goddess into a witch, a virgin into a whore, but the opposite operation, to give dignity to what has been scorned, to make the degraded disireable, that calls for art or for character.

Tell me with whom thou art found, and I will tell thee who thou art

Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient.

The highest problem of every art is, by means of appearances, to produce the illusion of a loftier reality

A school of art or of anything else is to be looked on as a single individual, who keeps talking to himself for a hundred years, and feels an extreme satisfaction with his own circle of favorite ideas, be they ever so silly.

As all Nature's thousands changes But one changeless God proclaim; So in Art's wide kingdom ranges One sole meaning still the same: This is Truth, eternal Reason, Which from Beauty takes its dress, And serene through time and season Stands aye in loveliness.

Mozart is a human incarnation of the divine force of creation.

He who possesses science and art, Possesses religion as well; He who possesses neither of these, Had better have religion.

The arts are the salt of the earth; as salt relates to food, the arts relate to technology.

The art of governing is a great metier, requiring the whole man, and it is therefore not well for a ruler to have too strong tendencies for other affairs.

Wind is the loving Wooer of waters; Wind blends together Billows all-foaming. Spirit of man, Thou art like unto water! Fortune of man, Thou art like unto wind!

Art is in itself noble; that is why the artist has no fear of what is common. This, indeed, is already ennobled when he takes it up.

We talk too much. We should talk less and draw more.

There is no patriotic art and no patriotic science.

Not art and science only, but patience will be required for the work.

The art of living rightly is like all arts; it must be learned and practiced with incessant care.

Just trust yourself and you'll learn the art of living.

You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it never Rises from the soul, and sways The heart of every single hearer, With deepest power, in simple ways. You’ll sit forever, gluing things together, Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps, Blowing on a miserable fire, Made from your heap of dying ash. Let apes and children praise your art, If their admiration’s to your taste, But you’ll never speak from heart to heart, Unless it rises up from your heart’s space.

If the whole world I once could see On free soil stand, with the people free Then to the moment might I say, Linger awhile. . .so fair thou art.

Colors are the deeds/ and sufferings of light.

Every situation--nay, every moment--is of infinite worth; for it is the representative of a whole eternity.

In art it's not the thinking that does the job, but making.

Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome. Every beginning is cheerful: the threshold is the place of expectation.

In all things, to serve from the lowest station upwards is necessary. To restrict yourself to a trade is best. For the narrow mind, whatever he attempts is still a trade; for the higher, an art; and the highest in doing one thing does all, or, to speak less paradoxically, in the one thing which he does rightly he sees the likeness of all that is done rightly.

There are three classes of readers; some enjoy without judgment; others judge without enjoyment; and some there are who judge while they enjoy, and enjoy while they judge. The latter class reproduces the work of art on which it is engaged. Its numbers are very small.

Thou art in the end what thou art. Put on wigs with millions of curls, set thy foot upon ell-high rocks. Thou abidest ever--what thou art.

The summit charms us, the steps to it do not; with the heights before our eyes, we like to linger in the plain. It is only a part of art that can be taught; but the artist needs the whole. He who is only half instructed speaks much and is always wrong; who knows it wholly is content with acting and speaks seldom or late.

The misfortune in the state is, that nobody can enjoy life in peace, but that everybody must govern; and in art, that nobody will enjoy what has been produced, but that every one wants to reproduce on his own account.

The connoisseur of art must be able to appreciate what is simply beautiful, but the common run of people is satisfied with ornament.

Many young painters would never have taken their pencils in hand if they could have felt, known, and understood, early enough, what really produced a master like Raphael.

In art, to express the infinite one should suggest infinitely more than is expressed.

Art is a severe business; most serious when employed in grand and sacred objects. The artist stands higher than art, higher than the object. He uses art for his purposes, and deals with the object after his own fashion.

The true, prescriptive artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless artist, following blind instinct, after an appearance of naturalness. The one leads to the highest peaks of art, the other to its lowest depths.

We can stand only a certain amount of unhappiness; anything beyond that annihilates us or passes us by, leaving us apathethetic.

All our knowledge is symbolic.

The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist.

When Nature begins to reveal her open secret to a man, he feels an irresistible longing for her worthiest interpreter, Art.

It used to happen, and still happens, to me to take no pleasure in a work of art at the first sight of it, because it is too much for me; but if I suspect any merit in it, I try to get at it; and then I never fail to make the most gratifying discoveries--to find new qualities in the work itself and new faculties in myself.

True works of art are a manifestation of the higher laws of nature.

Art will always be art.

A genuine work of art usually displeases at first sight, as it suggests a deficiency in the spectator.

Beauty is at once the ultimate principle and the highest aim of art.

Neither art thou the man to catch the fiend and hold him! [Ger., Du bist noch nicht der Mann den Teufel festzuhalten.

With little art, clear wit and sense Suggest their own delivery.

Art is constitutive-the artist determines beauty. He does not take it over.

Die Mathematiker sind eine Art Franzosen. Spricht man zu ihnen, so übersetzen sie alles in ihre eigene Sprache, und so wird es alsobald etwas ganz anderes. Mathematicians are a kind of Frenchmen. Whenever you say anything or talk to them, they translate it into their own language, and right away it is something completely different.

For the nature of women is closely allied to art

The highest problem of any art is to cause by appearance the illusion of a higher reality.

I had toward the poetic art a peculiar relation which was only practical after I had cherished in my mind for a long time a subject which possessed me, a model which inspired me, a predecessor who attracted me, until at length, after I had molded it

Art is long, life is short; judgement difficult, opportunity transient.

Man can find no better retreat from the world than art, and man can find no stronger link with the world than art.

Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.

When I say to the Moment flying; 'Linger a while -- thou art so fair!' Then bind me in thy bonds undying, And my final ruin I will bear!

Art is a mediator of the unspeakable.

Art rests on a kind of religious sense, on a deep, steadfast earnestness; and on this account it unites so readily with religion.

There is no patriotic art.

The misery that oppresses you lies not in your profession but in yourself! What man in the world would not find his situation intolerable if he chooses a craft, an art, indeed any form of life, without experiencing an inner calling? Whoever is born with a talent, or to a talent, must surely find in that the most pleasing of occupations! Everything on this earth has its difficult sides! Only some inner drive - pleasure, love - can help us overcome obstacles, prepare a path, and lift as out of the narrow circle in which others tread out their anguished, miserable existences!

One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is the intermixing of different genres.

Neither a work of nature nor one of art we get to know when they have been finished; we must surprise them in the process of beingcreated so as to understand them to some degree.

What matters in art is not thinking but making.

Artists have a double relationship towards nature: they are her master and her slave at the same time. They are her slave in so far as they must work with means of this world so as to be understood; her master in so far as they subject these means to their higher goals and make them subservient to them.

To be sure, a good work of art can and will have moral consequences, but to demand of the artists moral intentions, means ruiningtheir craft.

Idea and experience will never coincide in the center; only through art and action are they united.

True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them.

The dignity of art probably appears most eminently with music since it does not have any material that needs to be discounted. Music is all form and content and elevates and ennobles everything that it expresses.

If you have science and art, You also have religion; But if you don't have them, You better have religion.

Give shape, artist! don't talk! Your poem be but a breath.

True art can only spring from the intimate linking of the serious and the playful.

For the nature of a women is closely allied to art. [Ger., Denn das Naturell der Frauen Ist so nah mit Kunst verwandt.]

Woman is mistress of the art of completely imbittering the life of the person on whom she depends.

Religion is not in want of art; it rests on its own majesty.

He who has art and science also has religion, but those who do not have them better have religion.

It is with art as with love: How can a man of the world,with all his distractions, keep the inwardness which an artist must possess if he hopes to attain perfection? That inwardness which the spectator must share if he is to understand the work as the artist wishes and hopes... Believe me, talents are like virtues; either you must love them for their own sake or renounce them altogether. And they are only recognized and rewarded when we have practised them in secret, like a dangerous mystery."

Never let a day pass without looking at some perfect work of art, hearing some great piece of music and reading, in part, some great book.

No skill or art is needed to grow old; the trick is to endure it.

Each has his own happiness in his hands, as the artist handles the rude clay he seeks to reshape it into a figure; yet it is the same with this art as with all others: only the capacity for it is innate; the art itself must be learned and painstakingly practiced.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

It would be a lowly art that allowed itself to be understood all at once.

The work of art may have a moral effect, but to demand moral purpose from the artist is to make him ruin his work.

In art, the best is good enough.

God help us -- for art is long, and life so short.

Art is based on a strong sentiment of religion,--on a profound and mighty earnestness; hence it is so prone to co-operate with religion.

There is no surer method of evading the world than by following Art, and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by Art.

There is no better deliverance from the world than through art, and a man can form no surer bond with it.

Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality.

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.