Be always resolute with the present hour. Every moment is of infinite value.

A genuine work of art usually displeases at first sight, as it suggests a deficiency in the spectator.

Who never ate his bread in sorrow, Who never spent the darksome hours Weeping, and watching for the morrow,- He knows you not, ye heavenly Powers.

One's roused by this, another finds that fit: Each loves the play for what he brings to it.

We blame equally him who is too proud to put a proper value on his own merit and him who prizes too highly his spurious worth.

I have often reaped what others have sowed. My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name Goethe.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.