Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

A vain man can never be altogether rude. Desirous as he is of pleasing, he fashions his manners after those of others.

But when all is said, the greatest art is to limit and isolate oneself.

What is the true test of character unless it be its progressive development in the bustle and turmoil, in the action and reaction of daily life.

Man must strive, and striving he must err.

The man who occupies the first place seldom plays the principal part.

Nature is so perfect that the Trinity couldn't have fashioned her any more perfect. She is an organ on which our Lord plays and the devil works the bellows.

To the world you might be one person, but to one person, you might be the world. Kindness is the golden chain by which our world is bound together.

The old lose one of the greatest privileges of man, for they are no longer judged by their contemporaries.

Is this the destiny of man? Is he only happy before he has acquired his reason or after he has lost it?

The soul-stirring image of death is no bugbear to the sage, and is looked on without despair by the pious. It teaches the former to live, and it strengthens the hopes of the latter in salvation in the midst of distress. Death is new life to both.

Each traveler should know what he has to see, and what properly belongs to him, on a journey.

We eagerly get hold of a law that serves as a weapon to our passions.

Only learn to seize good fortune, for good fortune's always here.

Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.

Nothing is more odious than the majority, for it consists of a few powerful leaders, a certain number of accommodating scoundrels and submissive weaklings, and a mass of men who trot after them without thinking, or knowing their own minds.

Whoever gives himself up to solitude, Ah! he is soon alone.

I have found among my papers a sheet . . . in which I call architecture frozen music.

Create, artist, do not talk.

The greater part of all the mischief in the world arises from the fact that men do not sufficiently understand their own aims.

Win for yourself that which your fathers have won.

Do not, I beg you, look for anything behind phenomena. They are themselves their own lesson.

For a brave man deserves a well-endowed girl.

Man would not be the finest creature in the world if he were not too fine for it.

That we understand something perfectly, that we accomplish something better than anyone else around us, that is what matters.

We see only what we know.

Rash, inexperienced youth holds itself a chosen instrument, and allows itself unbounded license.

There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

Thank God when he oppresses you, and again when he releases you.

Reality surpasses imagination; and we see, breathing, brightening, and moving before our eyes sights dearer to our hearts than any we ever beheld in the land of sleep.

If you wish to advance into the infinite, explore the finite in all directions.

Writing is busy idleness.

Like the star that shines afar, Without haste and without rest, Let each one wheel with steady sway Round the task that rules the day, And do their best.

Love grants in a moment what toil can hardly acheive in an age.

Daily life is more instructive than the most effective book.

A man's name is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him...but a perfectly fitting garment, which, like the skin, has grown over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape without injuring the man himself.

Wherever a man may happen to turn, whatever a man may undertake, he will always end up by returning to that path which nature has marked out for him.

Normally, the sciences distance themselves from life and the return to it via a detour.

Most pioneers are at the mercy of doubt at the beginning, whether of their worth, of their theories, or of the whole enigmatic field in which they labour.

There is no surer method of evading the world than by following Art, and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by Art.

No sacred fane requires us to submit to insult.

We should know mankind better if we were not so anxious to resemble one another.

A vi'let on the meadow grew, That no one saw, that no one knew, It was a modest flower. A shepherdess pass'd by that way-- Light footed, pretty and so gay; That way she came, Softly warbling forth her lay.

It is not enough to take steps which may someday lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.

True works of art are a manifestation of the higher laws of nature.

Accepting good advice means nothing other than to strengthen one's own ability.

Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.

He who does not know foreign languages does not know anything about his own.

Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.