“All poetry is supposed to be instructive but in an unnoticeable manner; it is supposed to make us aware of what it would be valuable to instruct ourselves in; we must deduce the lesson on our own, just as with life.”
Letter to Carl Friedrich Zelter (26 November 1825)
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 185
German writer, artist, and politician 1749–1832Related quotes

“Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India.”
Max Müller, India: What Can India Teach Us? (1883), p. 15 http://books.google.com/books?id=pIVDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA15&dq=%22most+valuable+and+most+instructive+materials+in+the+history+of+man+are+treasured+up+in+India%22
Misattributed

Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (28 May 1934); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker

Source: The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume III: Solace for the Heart in Difficult Times (Hari-Nama Press, 2000), Chapter 8 - How To Strengthen Ourselves

“You must all take instructions from me!”
the conscience shrieks, in effect, to all the other mental processes. The other processes try it for a while, note that the conscience is unappeased, that it continues to shriek, and they note, too, that the outside world has not been even microscopically improved by the unselfish acts the conscience has demanded. They rebel at last. They pitch the tyrannous conscience down an oubliette, weld shut the manhole cover of that dark dungeon. They can hear the conscience no more. In the sweet silence, the mental processes look about for a new leader, and the leader most prompt to appear whenever the conscience is stilled, Enlightened Self-interest, does appear. Enlightened Self-interest gives them a flag, which they adore on sight. It is essentially the black and white Jolly Roger, with these words written beneath the skull and crossbones, 'The hell with you, Jack, I've got mine!"
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965)