Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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In der Kunst ist das Beste gut genug.
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The real scholar learns how to evolve the unknown from the known, and draws near the master.
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True art can only spring from the intimate linking of the serious and the playful.
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Ein unnütz Leben ist ein früher Tod...
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Do not hurry; do not rest.
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Piety is not an end but a means to attain by the greatest peace of mind the highest degree of culture.
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All poetry is supposed to be instructive but in an unnoticeable manner; it is supposed to make us aware of what it would be valuable to instruct ourselves in; we must deduce the lesson on our own, just as with life.
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Shakespeare is a great psychologist, and whatever can be known of the heart of man may be found in his plays.
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Doesn't surprise me that Christ our Lord preferred to live with whores and sinners, seeing I go in for that myself.
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Whoever gives himself up to solitude, Ah! he is soon alone.
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One is led astray alike by sympathy and coldness, by praise and by blame.
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We are pantheists as natural scientists, polytheists as poets, and monotheists as moral beings.
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The greatest happiness for the thinking person is to have explored the explorable and to venerate in equanimity that which cannotbe explored.
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Every form correctly seen is beautiful.
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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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Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.
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Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.
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The ideal of beauty is simplicity and tranquility.
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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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It is always a sign of an unproductive time when it concerns itself with petty and technical aspects [in philology], and likewiseit is a sign of an unproductive person to pursue such trifles.
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Rash combat oft immortalizes man; if he should fall, he is renowned in song; but after-ages reckon not the ceaseless tears which the forsaken woman sheds. Poets tell us not of the many nights consumed in weeping, or of the dreary days wherein her anguished soul vainly yearns to call her loved one back.
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Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan.
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New inventions can and will be made; however, nothing new can be thought of that concerns moral man. Everything has already been thought and said which at best we can express in different forms and give new expressions to.
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No skill or art is needed to grow old; the trick is to endure it.