Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Desire is the presentiment of our inner abilities, and the forerunner of our ultimate accomplishments.

Of the book of books most wondrous is the tender book of love.

Errors belong to libraries; truth, to the human mind.

All of us have life; few of us have an idea of it.

The solution of every problem is another problem

Whoever aspiring, struggles on, for him there is salvation.

Error is to truth as sleep is to waking. I have observed that one turns, as if refreshed, from error back to truth.

Gray are all the theories, But green is the tree of life.

Who strives always to the utmost, him can we save.

Truth is contrary to our nature, not so error, and this for a very simple reason: truth demands that we should recognize ourselves as limited, error flatters us that, in one way or another, we are unlimited.

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

Woman is mistress of the art of completely imbittering the life of the person on whom she depends.

It is a misfortune to pass at once from observation to conclusion, and to regard both as of equal value; but it befalls many a student.

To hard necessity ones will and fancy must conform.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

Words are good, but there is something better. The best cannot be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the chief matter. Action can only be only understood and represented by the spirit.

All of us, just because we are able to talk, also believe we are able to talk about language.

To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods.

The true, prescriptive artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless artist, following blind instinct, after an appearance of naturalness. The one leads to the highest peaks of art, the other to its lowest depths.

We learn to treasure what is above this earth; we long for revelation, which nowhere burns more purely and more beautifully than in the New Testament.

We must not take the faults of our youth with us into old age, for age brings along its own defects.

Whatever liberates our spirit, without also giving us mastery over ourselves, is destructive.

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive.

Talent develops in quiet, alone; character is sharpened in the torrent of the world.

One should not search for anything behind the phenomena. They themselves are the message.

The older I get the more I trust in the law according to which the rose and the lily bloom.

So, lively brisk old fellow, don't let age get you down. White hairs or not, you can still be a lover.

Certain faults are necessary for the existence of the individual. We would resent it if old friends were to get rid of certain peculiarities.

When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.

I will be lord over myself.

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.

Mastery is often taken for egotism.

It is impossible that beauty should ever distinctly appreciate itself.

The best benefit we derive from history is the enthusiasm it excites.

I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wants.

Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night, nearer yet and nearer rising to the light - light, serene and holy where my soul may rest, purified and lowly, sanctified and blest.

It is better to do the smallest thing in the world than to hold half an hour to be too small a thing.

As all Nature's thousands changes But one changeless God proclaim; So in Art's wide kingdom ranges One sole meaning still the same: This is Truth, eternal Reason, Which from Beauty takes its dress, And serene through time and season Stands aye in loveliness.

I am proud of my heart alone, it is the sole source of everything, all our strenght, happiness & misery. All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.

The useful may be trusted to further itself, for many produce it and no one can do without it; but the beautiful must be specially encouraged, for few can present it, while yet all have need of it.

Everyone is deceived in his hopes, cheated in his expectations.

The little man is still a man.

The most damaging prejudice consists of banning any kind of investigation of nature.

New inventions can and will be made; however, nothing new can be thought of that concerns moral man. Everything has already been thought and said which at best we can express in different forms and give new expressions to.

Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes what we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt.

Riches amassed in haste will diminish; but those collected by hand and little by little will multiply.

If you are to accomplish all that one demands of you, you must overestimate your own worth.