Schiller moves upward. Goethe comes from up above.

People of talent resemble a musical instrument more closely than they do a musician. Without outside help, they produce not a single sound, but given even the slightest touch, and a magnificent tune emanates from them.

German diligence is actually endurance.

Why does the past look so enticing to us? For the same reason why from a distance a meadow with flowers looks like a flower bed.

This searching and doubting and vacillating where nothing is clear but the arrogance of quest. I, too, had such noble ideas when I was still a boy.

Let no one say that taking action is hard. Action is aided by courage, by the moment, by impulse, and the hardest thing in the world is making a decision.

Those who want to row on the ocean of human knowledge do not get far, and the storm drives those out of their course who set sail.