Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for them, and he patiently suffers much for them; but he becomes impatient if he is required to give them up.

He who moves not forward, goes backward.

It's true that nothing in this world makes us so necessary to others as the affection we have for them.

If the mass of people hesitate to act, strike with swiftly and with boldness, the brave heart that understands and seizes opportunity can everything.

To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.

Who longs in solitude to live, Ah! soon his wish will gain: Men hope and love, men get and give, and leave him to his pain.

A joy shared is a joy doubled.

Some people spend the day in complaining of a headache, and the night in drinking the wine that gives it.

When you are in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude. We don't get to know people when they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are like.

The passions are like those demons with which Afrasahiab sailed down the Orus. Our only safety consists in keeping them asleep. If they we are lost.

Insofar as he makes use of his healthy senses, man himself is the best and most exact scientific instrument possible. The greatest misfortune of modern physics is that its experiments have been set apart from man, as it were, physics refuses to recognize nature in anything not shown by artificial instruments, and even uses this as a measure of its accomplishments.

Few people have the imagination for reality.

How happy he who can still hope to lift himself from this sea of error! What we know not, that we are anxious to possess, and cannot use what we know.

Human life-everybody lives it, but only to a few is it known.

nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart.

The century is advanced, but every individual begins afresh.

Ohne Hast, aber ohne Rast. - Without haste, but without rest.

I have so much in me, and the feeling for her absorbs it all; I have so much, and without her it all comes to nothing.

I reverence the individual who understands distinctly what he wishes; who unweariedly advances, who knows the means conducive to his object, and can seize and use them.

The summit charms us, the steps to it do not; with the heights before our eyes, we like to linger in the plain. It is only a part of art that can be taught; but the artist needs the whole. He who is only half instructed speaks much and is always wrong; who knows it wholly is content with acting and speaks seldom or late.

If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet.

The day is committed to error and floundering; success and achievement are matters of long range.

Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill.

The best genius is that which absorbs and assimilates everything without doing the least violence to its fundamental destiny.

People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us; and this goes on to the end. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor.

It is not enough to have knowledge; one must apply it. It is not enough to have wishes; one must also accomplish it.

Doubt can only be removed by action.

The decline in literature indicates a decline in the nation. The two keep pace in their downward tendency.

A school of art or of anything else is to be looked on as a single individual, who keeps talking to himself for a hundred years, and feels an extreme satisfaction with his own circle of favorite ideas, be they ever so silly.

One alone does not help, but rather he who unites with many at the right moment.

Just as, out of habit, one consults a run-down clock as though it were still going, so too one may look at the face of a beautiful woman as though he still loved her.

To know of someone here and there whom we accord with, who is living on with us, even in silence - - this makes our earthly ball a peopled garden.

Cursed Mammon be, when he with treasures To restless action spurs our fate! Cursed when for soft, indulgent leisures, He lays for us the pillows straight.

Those only obtain love, for the most part, who seek it not.

Quite often, as life goes on, when we feel completely secure as we go on our way, we suddenly notice that we are trapped in error, that we have allowed ourselves to be taken in by individuals, by objects, have dreamt up an affinity with them which immediately vanishes before our waking eye; and yet we cannot tear ourselves away, held fast by some power that seems incomprehensible to us. Sometimes, however, we become fully aware and realize that error as well as truth can move and spur us on to action.

No limit, no definition, may restrict the range or depth of the human spirit's passage into its own secrets or the world's.

There are three classes of readers; some enjoy without judgment; others judge without enjoyment; and some there are who judge while they enjoy, and enjoy while they judge. The latter class reproduces the work of art on which it is engaged. Its numbers are very small.

He who wishes to exert a useful influence must be careful to insult nothing. Let him not be troubled by what seems absurd, but concentrate his energies to the creation of what is good. He must not demolish, but build. He must raise temples where mankind may come and partake of the purest pleasure.

Every step of life shows much caution is required.

If you live criticizing people, you won't have time to love them.

Men in a state of nature, uncivilized nations, children, have a great fondness for colors in their utmost brightness, and especially for yellow-red.

Hypotheses are lullabies for teachers to sing their students to sleep.

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. Whatever you think you can do, or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, power and grace.

A purpose you impart is no longer your own.

It is not given to us to grasp the truth, which is identical with the divine, directly. We perceive it only in reflection, in example and symbol, in singular and related appearances. It meets us as a kind of life which is incomprehensible to us, and yet we cannot free ourselves from the desire to comprehend it.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Sin writes histories, goodness is silent.

What we agree with leaves us inactive, but contradiction makes us productive.