Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Please send me your last pair of shoes, worn out with dancing as you mentioned in your letter, so that I might have something to press against my heart.

To like things like, whatever one may ail; There is certain help.

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

Truth is a torch but a tremendous one. That is why we hurry past it, shielding our eyes, indeed, in fear of getting burned.

I am certain that I have been here as I am now a thousand times before, and I hope to return a thousand times... Man is a dialogue between nature and God. On other planets this dialogue will doubtless be of a higher and profounder character. What is lacking is Self-Knowledge. After that the rest will follow.

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

I've often heard it said a preacher might learn with a comedian for a teacher.

The present moment is a powerful goddess.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

What one doesn't understand one doesn't possess.

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.

What you have inherited from your forefathers, it takes work to make it your own.

Every situation--nay, every moment--is of infinite worth; for it is the representative of a whole eternity.

If you inquire what people are like here, I must answer, "The same as everywhere."

The coward only threatens when he is safe.

Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.

A man's errors are what make him amiable.

Stupidity is without anxiety.

Freedom consists not in refusing to recognize anything above us, but in respecting something which is above us; for by respecting it, we raise ourselves to it, and, by our very acknowledgment, prove that we bear within ourselves what is higher, and are worthy to be on a level with it.

If you wish a wise answer, you must put a rational question.

Man errs, till he has ceased to strive.

At the moment of commitment the entire universe conspires to assist you.

Thou shalt abstain, Renounce, refrain.

Unlimited activity, of whatever kind, must end in bankruptcy.

Certain books seem to be written, not that we might learn from them, but in order that we might see how much the author knows.

People may live as much retired from the world as they please; but sooner or later, before they are aware, they will find themselves debtor or creditor to somebody.

Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.

He who serves the public is a poor animal; he worries himself to death and no one thanks him for it.

Great endowments often announce themselves in youth in the form of singularity and awkwardness.

To make something you have to be something.

I have found a paper of mine among some others in which I call architecture 'petrified music.' Really there is something in this; the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of music.

In art it's not the thinking that does the job, but making.

The best slave is the one who thinks he is free.

I wish the stage were as narrow as the wire of a tighrope dancer so that no incompetent would dare step upon it.

Basic characteristics of an individual organism: to divide, to unite, to merge into the universal, to abide in the particular, to transform itself, to define itself, and as living things tend to appear under a thousand conditions, to arise and vanish, to solidify and melt, to freeze and flow, to expand and contract. Since these effects occur together, any or all may occur at the same moment.

It is in human nature to relax, when not compelled by personal advantage or disadvantage.

Everything is simpler than one can imagine, and yet complicated and inter-twined beyond comprehension.

I never believed in trying to do anything. Whatever I set out to do I found I had already accomplished.

There is no permanence in doubt; it incites the mind to closer inquiry and experiment, from which, if rightly managed, certainty proceeds, and in this alone can man find thorough satisfaction.

Every man must form himself as a particular being, seeking, however, to attain that general idea of which all mankind are constituents.

Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.

Merely to breathe freely does not mean to live.

On all the peaks lies peace.

Every solution of a problem is a new problem.

The important thing in life is to have a great aim, and the determination to attain it.

Hope is the second soul of the unhappy.

There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on how one looks at it.