Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Every second is of infinite value.

There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.

There is nothing in life so irrational, that good sense and chance may not set it to rights; nothing so rational, that folly and chance may not utterly confound it.

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.

It makes no good to point the failures out without showing at the same time the remedy to address them.

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

In all things, to serve from the lowest station upwards is necessary. To restrict yourself to a trade is best. For the narrow mind, whatever he attempts is still a trade; for the higher, an art; and the highest in doing one thing does all, or, to speak less paradoxically, in the one thing which he does rightly he sees the likeness of all that is done rightly.

Nothing tells more about the character of a man than the things he makes fun of.

The world is so great and rich, and life so full of variety, that you can never lack occasions for poems.

Habit is the most imperious of all masters.

People are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake what they see others do, whether they have an aptitude for it or not.

Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine

Nature is, after all, the only book that offers important content on every page.

To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult.

If one has not read the newspapers for some months and then reads them all together, one sees, as one never saw before, how much time is wasted with this kind of literature.

Each has his own happiness in his hands, as the artist handles the rude clay he seeks to reshape it into a figure; yet it is the same with this art as with all others: only the capacity for it is innate; the art itself must be learned and painstakingly practiced.

Deny yourself! You must deny yourself! That is the song that never ends.

He who only tastes his error will long dwell with it, will take delight in it as in a singular felicity; while he who drains it to the dregs will, if he be not crazy, find it to be what it is.

There is nothing new on earth / For a person who lives long and experiences much. / In my years of youthful wandering / I have seen crystallized people.

There is no crime of which I do not deem myself capable.

Art rests on a kind of religious sense, on a deep, steadfast earnestness; and on this account it unites so readily with religion.

Enthusiasm is of the greatest value, so long as we are not carried away by it.

The beginning of faith is the beginning of fruitfulness; but the beginning of unbelief, however glittering, is empty.

We're really up against it, we poor women: A bachelor's a hard thing to convert

Pity on the person who has become accustomed to seeing in necessity something arbitrary, who ascribes to the arbitrary some sort of reason, and even claims that following that sort of reason has religious value.

Where the light is brightest, the shadows are deepest.

What we do not understand we do not possess.

It is said, that no one is a hero to their butler. The reason is, that it requires a hero to recognize a hero. The butler, however, will probably know well how to estimate his equals.

Duty is the demand of the hour.

Don't dissipate your powers; strive to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it will surely repent of every ill-judged outlay.

A man is not little when he finds it difficult to cope with circumstances, but when circumstances overmaster him.

Nature does not suffer her veil to be taken from her, and what she does not choose to reveal to the spirit, thou wilt not wrest from her by levers and screws.

Lamps make oil-spots and candles need snuffing; it is only the light of heaven that shines pure and leaves no stain.

Character is constructed amidst the tempests of the World

In politics as on a sickbed men toss from side to side in hope of lying more comfortably.

Nothing is more consonant with Nature than that she puts into operation in the smallest detail that which she intends as a whole.

Great thoughts and a pure heart, that is what we should ask from God.

It is natural to man to regard himself as the object of the creation, and to think of all things in relation to himself, and the degree in which they can serve and be useful to him.

There are people who pay attention to the weaknesses of their friends; that is to no avail. I have always closely watched and profited from the strengths of my adversaries.

The true poet is called to take in the splendor of the world and for that reason will always be inclined to praise rather than tofind fault.

Distance... is like futurity. A dim vastness is spread before our souls; the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision... But alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant 'there' becomes the present 'here,' all is changed; we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness.

Solitude is fine when you are at peace with yourself and have something definite to do.

It is a great error to take oneself for more than one is, or for less than one is worth.

But the valid issue is the extent to which man knows how to form and master the material at his command.

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing

Everything great and intelligent is in the minority

Rest not. Life is sweeping by; go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time.

So long as you live and work, you will be misunderstood; to that you must resign yourself once and for all. Be silent!