Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Taste is only to be educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably good but of the truly excellent. I therefore show you only the best works; and when you are grounded in these, you will have a standard for the rest, which you will know how to value, without overrating them.

Manners form the great charm of women.

How often do I lull my seething blood to rest, for you have never seen anything so unsteady, so uncertain, as this heart.

Colour itself is a degree of darkness.

For the nature of women is closely allied to art

Wisdom is found only in truth.

What I possess, seems far away to me, and what is gone becomes reality.

To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is to not have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything.

Action has magic, grace and power in it.

The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.

Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.

Whatever you can do or dream, begin it.

No one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genuine motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod.

A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows and rows of natural objects, classified with name and form.

There is no remedy but love for the great superiority of others

To be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state.

Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at.

The world is so full of simpletons and madmen, that one need not seek them in a madhouse.

True observers of nature, although they may think differently, will still agree that everything that is, everything that is observable as a phenomenon, can only exhibit itself in one of two ways. It is either a primal polarity that is able to unify, or it is a primal unity that is able to divide. The operation of nature consists of splitting the united or uniting the divided; this is the eternal movement of systole and diastole of the heartbeat, the inhalation and exhalation of the world in which we live, act, and exist.

The style of an author is a faithful copy of his mind.

If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.

The style of writing required in the great world is distinguished by a free and daring grace, a careless security, a fine and sharp polish, a delicate and perfect taste; while that fitted for the people is characterized by a vigorous natural fulness, a profound depth of feeling, and an engaging naivete.

The most congenial social occasions are those ruled by cheerful deference of each for all.

Modern poets add a lot of water to their ink.

Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.

No two people see the world exactly alike, and different temperaments will often apply the same principle, recognized by both, differently. Even one and the same person won't always maintain the same views and judgments: earlier convictions must give way to later ones.

There are two things parents should give their children roots and wings. Roots to give them bearing and a sense of belonging, but also wings to help free them from constraints and prejudices and give them other ways to travel (or rather, to fly).

The greatest happiness for the thinking person is to have explored the explorable and to venerate in equanimity that which cannotbe explored.

The greatest act of faith takes place when a man finally decides that he is not God.

Talent is nurtured in solitude; character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again.

Energy will do anything that can be done in the world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities will make a two-legged animal a man without it.

Life teaches us to be less harsh with ourselves and with others.

We all walk in mysteries. We are surrounded by an atmosphere about which we still know nothing at all.

Nothing should be valued higher than the value of the day.

We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise, we harden.

Do not give in too much to feelings. A overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth.

That is the way of youth and life in general: that we do not understand the strategy until after the campaign is over.

Out of moderation a pure happiness springs.

Children can scarcely be fashioned to meet with our likes and our purpose. Just as God did us give them, so must we hold them and love them, nurture and teach them to fullness and leave them to be what they are.

Truth must be repeated again and again, because error is constantly being preached round about.

It is with art as with love: How can a man of the world,with all his distractions, keep the inwardness which an artist must possess if he hopes to attain perfection? That inwardness which the spectator must share if he is to understand the work as the artist wishes and hopes... Believe me, talents are like virtues; either you must love them for their own sake or renounce them altogether. And they are only recognized and rewarded when we have practised them in secret, like a dangerous mystery."

I am the spirit that negates. And rightly so, for all that comes to be Deserves to perish wretchedly; 'Twere better nothing would begin. Thus everything that that your terms, sin, Destruction, evil represent— That is my proper element.

One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.

My counsel is, to force nothing, and rather to trifle and sleep away all unproductive days and hours, than on such days to compose something that will afterwards give no pleasure.

Words are mere sound and smoke, dimming the heavenly light.

One must not criticize that which is common since it remains always the same.

What do people mean when they talk about unhappiness? It is not so much unhappiness as impatience that from time to time possesses men, and then they choose to call themselves miserable.