Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Instruction does much, but encouragement everything.
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I consider him of no account who esteems himself just as the popular breath may chance to raise him.
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What right those who govern have to govern they don't question, they just govern. Whether the people have a right to depose them that doesn't concern them. All they are concerned with is that the people will not be tempted to depose them.
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As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
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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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Young Schopenhauer, a zealous and thorough-going Kantian, tried to explain that light would cease to exist along with the seeing eye. 'What!' he said, according to Schopenhauer's own report, 'looking at him with his Jove-like eyes,'-'You should rather say that you would not exist if the light could not see you?'
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We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to erase them.
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A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is also ignorant of his own language.
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With little art, clear wit and sense Suggest their own delivery.
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Investigate what is, and not what pleases.
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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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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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The child, offered the mother's breast, Will not in the beginning grab it; But soon it clings to it with zest. And thus at wisdom's copious breasts You'll drink each day with greater zest.
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'No matter how far our spiritual culture may continue to progress, no matter how much the natural sciences may grow, becoming ever more profound and more inclusive, no matter how much the human spirit may will to expand, that human spirit will never escape from the majesty and ethical sublimity of Christianity, as it shimmers and shines in the Gospels.'
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We are our own devils; we drive ourselves out of our Edens.
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Sceptics are yet the most credulous.
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What chance gathers, she easily scatters. A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.
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Art is a mediator of the unspeakable.
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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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Even the lowliest, provided he is whole, can be happy, and in his own way, perfect.
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It is in human nature to relax, when not compelled by personal advantage or disadvantage.
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One never goes so far as when one doesn't know where one is going.
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Be always resolute with the present hour. Every moment is of infinite value.
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Superstition is the poesy of practical life; hence, a poet is none the worse for being superstitious.