“One is never satisfied with a portrait of a person that one knows.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , book Elective Affinities

Bk. II, Ch. 2
Elective Affinities (1809)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "One is never satisfied with a portrait of a person that one knows." by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 185

German writer, artist, and politician 1749–1832

Related quotes

“One never knows whether people have principles on principle or whether for their own personal satisfaction.”

Karel Čapek (1890–1938) Czech writer

Letters from England (1925)

“No one who ever wants praise will be satisfied with praise, the person who wants love cannot be satisfied with love. No want is ever fulfilled. And therefore I still don't know whether it is better to fear God and keep His commandments or to curse God and die.”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

“Make portraits of people in familiar and typical positions, above all give their faces the same choice of expression one gives their bodies. Thus if laughter is typical for a person, make him laugh – there are, naturally, feelings that one cannot render…”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

Quote from Degas' Notebook of 1869; as quoted in Impressionism and Post Impressionism 1874 – 1904, 'Sources and Documents', Linda Nochlin, Englewood Cliffs, New Yersey, 1966, p. 62
1855 - 1875

“A person should never be satisfied with a thought God, for when the thought perishes, the God also perishes.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

Der Mensch soll sich nicht genügen lassen an einem gedachten Gott; denn wenn der Gedanke vergeht, so vergeht auch der Gott.
Deutsche Predigten und Traktate (1963), p. 60

“That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a maxim that has been long and generally approved; never, that I know of, controverted.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Letter to Benjamin Vaughan https://books.google.de/books?id=d3UPAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA166&dq=maxim, on Blackstone's Ratio (14 March 1785).
Epistles

“Nobody is familiar with his own profile, and it comes as a shock, when one sees it in a portrait, that one really looks like that to people standing beside one.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

Source: Claudius the God (1935), Ch. 6.
Context: Nobody is familiar with his own profile, and it comes as a shock, when one sees it in a portrait, that one really looks like that to people standing beside one. For one's full face, because of the familiarity that mirrors give it, a certain toleration and even affection is felt; but I must say that when I first saw the model of the gold piece that the mint-masters were striking for me I grew angry and asked whether it was intended to be a caricature. My little head with its worried face perched on my long neck, and the Adam's apple standing out almost like a second chin, shocked me. But Messalina said: "No, my dear, that's really what you look like. In fact, it is rather flattering than otherwise."