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No productiveness of the highest kind, no remarkable discovery, no great thought which bears fruit and has results, is in the power of any one; such things are exalted above all earthly control. Man must consider them as an unexpected gift from above, as pure children of God, which he must receive and venerate with joyful thanks, ... as a vessel found worthy for the reception of such divine influence.

No productiveness of the highest kind, no remarkable discovery, no great thought which bears fruit and has results, is in the power of any one; such things are exalted above all earthly control. Man must consider them as an unexpected gift from above, as pure children of God, which he must receive and venerate with joyful thanks, ... as a vessel found worthy for the reception of such divine influence.

Approximate author period: c. 1790 AD · early modern

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Goethe
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1790 AD · early modern
author lifetime midpoint (1749–1832)
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Dictionary of Quotations (1893) (1893 AD)

Printed citation: Goethe. · page_306

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The voice behind the words.

Goethe: Painted portrait, 1828

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

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