Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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You will find the most pronounced hatred of other nations on the lowest cultural levels. There is, though, a level where the hatred disappears completely and where one so to speak stands above the nations and where one experiences fortune or misfortune of a neighboring country as if they had happened to one's own.
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No one would talk much in society, if he knew how often he misunderstands others.
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The desire to explain what is simple by what is complex, what is easy by what is difficult, is a calamity affecting the whole body of science, known, it is true, to men of insight, but not generally admitted.
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The man who masters himself is delivered from the force that binds all creatures.
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Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.
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For a strolling damsel a doubtful reputation bears.
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A genuine work of art usually displeases at first sight, as it suggests a deficiency in the spectator.
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To measure up to all that is demanded of him, a man must overestimate his capacities.
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The most difficult thing is what is thought to be the simplest; to really see the things which are before your eyes.
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Yes, my love, who soever lives, loses, . . . but he also wins.
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One must be something to be able to do something.
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Ah, how often I've cursed those foolish pages,That showed my youthful sufferings to everyone!If Werther had been my brother, and I'd killed him,His sad ghost could hardly have persecuted me more.
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The angles even Draw strength from gazing on its glance, Though none its meaning fathom may; The world's unwither'd countenance Is bright as at creation's day.
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To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.
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A person is never happy till their vague strivings has itself marked out its proper limitations.
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As beauteous is the world, and many a joy Floats through its wide dominion. But, alas, When we would seize the winged good, it flies.
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Everything that we encounter leaves traces behind. Everything contributes imperceptibly to our education.
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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.
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One says a lot in vain, refusing;The other mainly hears the 'No.'
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Amerika, du hast es besser-als unser Kontinent, der alte.
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The highest cannot be spoken; it can only be acted.
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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.
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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.
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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?