Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Properly speaking, such work is never finished; one must declare it so when, according to time and circumstances, one has done one's best.

Over all the mountain tops is peace. In all treetops you perceive scarcely a breath. The little birds in the forest are silent. Wait then; soon, you too, will have peace.

By the artist's seizing any one object from nature, that object no longer is part of nature. One can go so far as to say that theartist creates the object in that very moment by emphasizing its significant, characteristic, and interesting aspects or, rather, by adding the higher values.

Plants and flowers of the commonest kind can form a pleasing diary, because nothing which calls back to us the remembrance of a happy moment can be insignificant.

Nature is the living, visible garment of God.

True happiness springs from moderation.

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

Piety, like nobility, has its aristocracy.

Nothing will change the fact that I cannot produce the least thing without absolute solitude.

The eternal female draws us onward.

People do not mind their faults being spread out before them, but they become impatient if called on to give them up.

In all our academies we attempt far too much. ... In earlier times lectures were delivered upon chemistry and botany as branches of medicine, and the medical student learned enough of them. Now, however, chemistry and botany are become sciences of themselves, incapable of comprehension by a hasty survey, and each demanding the study of a whole life, yet we expect the medical student to understand them. He who is prudent, accordingly declines all distracting claims upon his time, and limits himself to a single branch and becomes expert in one thing.

If you want someone to develop a specific trait, treat them as though they already had it.

Alas! sorrow from happiness is oft evolved.

There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one's self on lies and fables.

The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim.

Man... knows only when he is satisfied and when he suffers, and only his sufferings and his satisfactions instruct him concerning himself, teach him what to seek and what to avoid. For the rest, man is a confused creature; he knows not whence he comes or whither he goes, he knows little of the world, and above all, he knows little of himself.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

Nature has neither kernel Nor shell

The master proves himselin recognizing his limitations.

Very few people love others for what they are; rather, they love what they lend them, their own selves, their own idea of them.

Life is too short to drink bad wine.

To have a positive religion is not necessary. To be in harmony with yourself and the universe is what counts, and this is possible without positive and specific formulation in words.

If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.

The misfortune in the state is, that nobody can enjoy life in peace, but that everybody must govern; and in art, that nobody will enjoy what has been produced, but that every one wants to reproduce on his own account.

In politics people throw themselves, as on a sickbed, from one side to the other in the belief they will lie more comfortably.

The best way to understand a painting is by drawing it.

Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.

One man's word is no man's word; we should quietly hear both sides.

Whatever we may say against collections, which present authors in a disjointed form, they nevertheless bring about many excellent results. We are not always so composed, so full of wisdom, that we are able to take in at once the whole scope of a work according to its merits. Do we not mark in a book passages which seem to have a direct reference to ourselves? Young people especially, who have failed in acquiring a complete cultivation of mind, are roused in a praiseworthy way by brilliant passages.

The dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety.

You don't have to travel around the world to understand that the sky is blue everywhere

Our mistakes and failures are always the first to strike us, and outweigh in our imagination what we have accomplished and attained.

Traveling is like gambling: it is always connected with winning and losing and generally where it is least expected we receive, more or less than what we hoped for.

The miller believes that all the wheat grows so that his mill keeps running.

I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator.

The eye doesn't see any shapes, it sees only what is differentiated through light and dark or through colors.

The world is full of contradiction.

Die Mathematiker sind eine Art Franzosen. Spricht man zu ihnen, so übersetzen sie alles in ihre eigene Sprache, und so wird es alsobald etwas ganz anderes. Mathematicians are a kind of Frenchmen. Whenever you say anything or talk to them, they translate it into their own language, and right away it is something completely different.

Don't give us your doubts, gives us your certainties, for we have doubts enough of our own.

With the growth of knowledge our ideas must from time to time be organized afresh. The change takes place usually in accordance with new maxims as they arise, but it always remains provisional.

How can one learn to know oneself? Never by introspection, rather by action.

Nature reacts not only to physical disease, but also to moral weakness; when the danger increases; she gives us greater courage

The soul is indestructible and its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set at night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere.

A correct answer is like an affectionate kiss.

Look at a man the way he is and he only becomes worse, but look at him as if he were what he could be, then he becomes what he should be.

Only he who finds empiricism irksome is driven to method.

Hell begins the day that God grants you the vision to see all that you could have done, should have done, and would have done, but did not do.