Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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There's nothing clever that hasn't been thought of before - you've just got to try to think it all over again.
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Ein echter deutscher Mann mag keinen Franzen leiden,Doch ihre Weine trinkt er gern.
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Nicht vor Irrthum zu bewahren, ist die Pflicht des Menschen erziehers; sondern den Irrenden zu leiten, ja ihn seinen Irrthum aus vollen Bechern ausschlürfen zu lassen, das ist Weisheit der Lehrer. Wer seinen Irrthum nur kostet, hält lange damit Haus; er freuet sich dessen als eines seltenen Glücks; aber wer ihn ganz erschöpft, der muß ihn kennenlernen.
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Words are mere sound and smoke, dimming the heavenly light.
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He who moves not forward, goes backward.
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The effects of good music are not just because it's new; on the contrary music strikes us more the more familiar we are with it.
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Sceptics are yet the most credulous.
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The best fortune that can fall to a man is that which corrects his defects and makes up for his failings.
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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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The poet should seize the Particular, and he should, if there be anything sound in it, thus represent the Universal.
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I curse all negative purism that tells me not to use a word from another language that either expresses something that my own language cannot or does that in a more delicate manner.
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The close and thoughtful observer more and more learns to recognize his limitations. He realizes that with the steady growth of knowledge more and more new problems keep on emerging.
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I'm gazing at church and palace, ruin and column,Like a serious man making sensible use of a journey,But soon it will happen, and all will be one vast temple,Love's temple, receiving its new initiate.Though you're a whole world, Rome, still, without Love,The world isn't the world, and Rome can't be Rome.
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Once a man's thirty, he's already old,He is indeed as good as dead.It's best to kill him right away.
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Few are open to conviction, but the majority of men are open to persuasion.
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Superstition is the poesy of practical life; hence, a poet is none the worse for being superstitious.
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Art is a mediator of the unspeakable.
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With little art, clear wit and sense Suggest their own delivery.
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I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.
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Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.
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In der Kunst ist das Beste gut genug.
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There are two things parents should give their children roots and wings. Roots to give them bearing and a sense of belonging, but also wings to help free them from constraints and prejudices and give them other ways to travel (or rather, to fly).
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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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A true German can't stand the French, Yet willingly he drinks their wines.