Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Who can think wise or stupid things at all that were not thought already in the past.

There is nothing by which men display their character so much as in what they consider ridiculous... Fools and sensible men are equally innocuous. It is in the half fools and the half wise that the great danger lies.

If each one does their duty as an individual and if each one works in their own proper vocation, it will be right with the whole.

Ill-humor is nothing more than an inward feeling of our own want of merit, a dissatisfaction with ourselves which is always united with an envy that foolish vanity excites.

Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity.

At the end of life thoughts hitherto impossible come to the collected mind, like good spirits which let themselves down from the shining heights of the past.

Where confidence is wanting, the most beautiful flower in the garland of love is missing.

I have, alas! Philosophy, Medicine, Jurisprudence too, And to my cost Theology, With ardent labor, studied through. And here I stand, with all my lore, Poor fool, no wiser than before.

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.

By seeking and blundering we learn.

He who has art and science also has religion, but those who do not have them better have religion.

The Evil One has left, the evil ones remain.

Most men, even the most accomplished, are of limited faculties; every one sets a value on certain qualities in himself and others: these alone he is willing to favour, these alone will he have cultivated.

Giving is the business of the rich.

The nude is the perfect expression of freedom. Freedom to be.

Where a man has a passion for meditating without the capacity of thinking, a particular idea fixes itself fast, and soon creates a mental disease.

No two men see the world exactly alike, and different temperaments will apply in different ways a principle that they both acknowledge.

A leaf that is destined to grow large is full of grooves and wrinkles at the start. Now if one has no patience and wants it smooth offhand like a willow leaf, there is trouble ahead.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

Every great idea exerts, on first appearing, a tyrannical influence: Hence, the advantages it brings are turned all too soon into disadvantages.

It is the color closest to light. In its utmost purity it always implies the nature of brightness and has a cheerful, serene, gently stimulating character. Hence, experience teaches us that yellow makes a thoroughly warm and comforting impression.

A judge who cannot punish, in the end associates themselves with the criminal.

The society of women is the element of good manners.

The further one advances in experience, the closer one comes to the unfathomable; the more one learns to utilize experience, the more one recognizes that the unfathomable is of no practical value.

A king there was once reigning, Who had a goodly flea, Him loved he without feigning, As his own son were he!

Love can do much, but duty more.

Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.

With knowledge grows doubt.

Distrust those in whom the desire to punish is strong.

Oh, happy he who still hopes he can emerge from Error's boundless sea! - Faust.

One doesn't always lose when one has to do without.

A great artist... must be shaken by the naked truths that will not be comforted. This divine discontent, this disequilibrium, this state of inner tension is the source of artistic energy.

He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

There is no patriotic art.

The absence of temptation is the absence of virtue.

If all these devils really exist it proves there must be angels, too.

Everyone only hears what he understands.

Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.

Superstition is part of the poetry of life.

The most original of authors are not so because they advance what is new, but more because they know how to say something, as if it had never been said before.

It is in the half fools and the half wise that the greatest danger lies.

Against great advantages in another, there are no means of defending ourselves except love.

Some of our weaknesses are born in us, others are the result of education; it is a question which of the two gives us most trouble.

You are, when all is done-just what you are.

Mystery is truth's dancing partner.

And I have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair, that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence.

Death is Nature's expert advice to get plenty of Life.