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What has been written, as well as what has been actually done, shrivels up and ceases to be worth anything, until it has again been taken up into life, been again felt, thought, and acted upon.

What has been written, as well as what has been actually done, shrivels up and ceases to be worth anything, until it has again been taken up into life, been again felt, thought, and acted upon.

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_535

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.

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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