Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Neuere Poeten tun viel Wasser in die Tinte.
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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.
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It is delivery that makes the orators success.
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How to please the public - that's the test, But nowadays I find I'm in a fix; I know they're not accustomed to the best, But they've all read so much they know the tricks. How can we give then something fresh and new That's serious, but entertaining too?
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Happy the man who early learns the wide chasm that lies between his wishes and his powers.
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Man must strive, and striving he must err.
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The art of governing is a great metier, requiring the whole man, and it is therefore not well for a ruler to have too strong tendencies for other affairs.
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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.
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Mozart is a human incarnation of the divine force of creation.
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The society of women is the element of good manners.
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To make a young couple love each other, it is only necessary to oppose and separate them.
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Publishers are all cohorts of the devil; there must be a special hell for them somewhere.
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Our senses don't deceive us: our judgment does.
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A man's name is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him...but a perfectly fitting garment, which, like the skin, has grown over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape without injuring the man himself.
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Moral epochs have their course as well as the seasons. We can no more hold them fast than we can hold sun, moon, and stars. Our faults perpetually return upon us; and herein lies the subtlest difficulty of self-knowledge.
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It used to happen, and still happens, to me to take no pleasure in a work of art at the first sight of it, because it is too much for me; but if I suspect any merit in it, I try to get at it; and then I never fail to make the most gratifying discoveries--to find new qualities in the work itself and new faculties in myself.
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Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.
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I am the Spirit that denies.
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The person who in shaky times also wavers only increases the evil, but the person of firm decision fashions the universe.
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A person is never happy till their vague strivings has itself marked out its proper limitations.
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To measure up to all that is demanded of him, a man must overestimate his capacities.
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Doubt can only be removed by action.
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Microscopes and telescopes really confuse our minds.
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Tell me you stones, O speak, you towering palaces!Streets, say a word! Spirit of this place, are you dumb?All things are alive in your sacred wallsEternal Rome, it's only for me all is still.