Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

In the end we retain from our studies only that which we practically apply.

We can redeem anyone who strives unceasingly.

The world is for thousands a freak show; the images flicker past and vanish; the impressions remain flat and unconnected in the soul. Thus they are easily led by the opinions of others, are content to let their impressions be shuffled and rearranged and evaluated differently.

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.

We have time enough if we but use it aright

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiation - creation - there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans.

Say what we may of the inadequacy of translation, yet the work is and will always be one of the weightiest and worthiest undertakings in the general concerns of the world.

Colors are the deeds/ and sufferings of light.

What is the path? There is no path. On into the unknown.

The rogue has everywhere the advantage.

It is delivery that makes the orators success.

Science arose from poetry... when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.

Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have any; but keep your doubts to yourself, for I have enough of my own.

Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded.

Habit is a man's sole comfort. We dislike doing without even unpleasant things to which we have become accustomed.

The new vulcanism is really a daring attempt to connect the present, incomprehensible world to a past, unknown one.

Before you can do something, you must first be something.

Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.

We can't form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.

In the colored reflection we have Life.

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate.

He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line.

If you modestly enjoy your fame you are not unworthy to rank with the holy.

As for what I have done as a poet, I take no pride in whatever. Excellent poets have lived at the same time with me, poets more excellent lived before me, and others will come after me. But that in my country I am the only person who knows the truth in the difficult science of colors-of that, I say, I am not a little proud, and here have a consciousness of superiority to many.

If in the infinite you want to stride, Just walk in the finite to every side.

If you don't feel it, you'll never achieve it.

You acquire a language most readily in the country where it is spoken; you study mineralogy best among miners; and so with everything else.

Do you want to live happily? Travel with two bags, one for giving, the other for receiving.

Enjoy what thou has inherited from thy sires if thou wouldn't really possess it. What we employ and use is never an oppressive burden; what the moment brings forth, that only can it profit by.

To measure up to all that is demanded of him, a man must overestimate his capacities

Master and Doctor are my titles; for ten years now, without repose, I held my erudite recitals and led my pupils by the nose.

These auspicious aspects, which the astrologers subsequently interpreted for me, may have been the causes of my preservation.

What is predestination? Answer: God is more powerful and wiser than we are, therefore he deals with us according to his pleasure.

When a wife has a good husband, it is easily seen on her face.

Not the maker of plans and promises, but rather the one who offers faithful service in small matters. This is the person who is most likely to achieve what is good and lasting.

Rash combat oft immortalizes man; if he should fall, he is renowned in song; but after-ages reckon not the ceaseless tears which the forsaken woman sheds. Poets tell us not of the many nights consumed in weeping, or of the dreary days wherein her anguished soul vainly yearns to call her loved one back.

In comradeship is danger countered best.

Love does not rule; but it trains, and that is more.

War is in truth a disease in which the juices that serve health and maintenance are used for the sole purpose of nourishing something foreign, something at odds with nature.

Everything factual is, in a sense, theory. The blue of the sky exhibits the basic laws of chromatics. There is no sense in looking for something behind phenomena: they are theory.

The senses do not deceive us, but the judgment does.

Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.

It is quite beyond me how anyone can believe God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveal to us our relationship to it, if our hearts fail to tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we shall assuredly not learn it from books, which are at best designed but to give names to our errors.

Normally, people believe that, if they hear just words, that these words must lead to some thought.

And we went our separate ways without having understood each other. As in this world nobody understands the other easily.

The most difficult thing is what is thought to be the simplest; to really see the things which are before your eyes.

If you are convinced of a matter, you must take sides or you don't deserve to succeed.

It matters little whether a man be mathematically or philologically or artistically cultivated, so he be but cultivated.