Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Purpose Quotations

Secrecy has many advantages, for when you tell someone the purpose of any object right away, they often think there is nothing to it.

A purpose you impart is no longer your own.

Austere perseverance, hash and continuous... rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistible greater with time.

To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.

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.

Children can scarcely be fashioned to meet with our likes and our purpose. Just as God did us give them, so must we hold them and love them, nurture and teach them to fullness and leave them to be what they are.

Thus one can observe that those who proclaim piety as their goal and purpose usually turn into hypocrites.

War is in truth a disease in which the juices that serve health and maintenance are used for the sole purpose of nourishing something foreign, something at odds with nature.

Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.

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