Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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The society of women is the element of good manners.
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Mozart is a human incarnation of the divine force of creation.
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Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.
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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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Instruction does much, but encouragement everything.
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Our senses don't deceive us: our judgment does.
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Man must strive, and striving he must err.
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It is delivery that makes the orators success.
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The human mind will not be confined to any limits.
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Ein unnütz Leben ist ein früher Tod...
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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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Doubt can only be removed by action.
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Microscopes and telescopes really confuse our minds.
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O'er all the hilltopsIs quiet now,In all the treetopsHearest thouHardly a breath;The birds are asleep in the trees:Wait; soon like theseThou too shalt rest.
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The bad thing is that thinking about thought doesn't help at all; one has to have it from nature so that the good ideas appear before us like free children of God calling to us: Here we are.
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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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I am the Spirit that denies.
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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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No man learns to know his inmost nature by introspection, for he rates himself sometimes too low, and often too high, by his own measurement. Man knows himself only by comparing himself with other men; it is life that touches his genuine worth.
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We who didn't inherit political power nor are made to acquire riches like nothing better than that which expands and solidifies the power of the spirit.
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Properly speaking, such work is never finished; one must declare it so when, according to time and circumstances, one has done one's best.
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A violet on the meadow grew, That no one saw, that no one knew, It was a modest flower. A shepherdess pass'd by that way. Light footed, pretty and so gay; That way she came, Softly warbling forth her lay.
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Against great advantages in another, there are no means of defending ourselves except love.