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About this quote

What does it mean?
One must possess some quality or identity before being able to act meaningfully.
In plain terms
You need to be something before you can do something.
What can you take from it?
Develop a clear sense of self before taking action.

Where it applies

  • career planning
  • personal projects

Putting it to work

  • clarify goals
  • build competence

Questions to consider

  • Can you act before knowing who you are?
  • Which comes first, identity or deed?

Another view

Action can also shape identity, not just the reverse.

More from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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  2. If I work incessantly to the last, nature owes me another form of existence when the present one collapses.

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  3. Should I not be proud, when for twenty years I have had to admit to myself that the great Newton and all the mathematicians and noble calculators along with hi…

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