Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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The artist who is not also a craftsman is no good; but, alas, most of our artists are nothing else.
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As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
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No one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genuine motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod.
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Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.
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God made man simple, but how he changed and got complicated is hard to say.
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There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one's self on lies and fables.
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The sea is flowing ever, The land retains it never.
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To live as one likes is plebian the noble man aspires to order and law.
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We are our own devils; we drive ourselves out of our Edens.
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Not all that is presented to us as history has really happened; and what really happened did not actually happen the way it is presented to us; moreover, what really happened is only a small part of all that happened. Everything in history remains uncertain, the largest events as well as the smallest occurrence.
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Our wishes are presentiments of the abilities that lie in us, harbingers of what we will be able to accomplish.
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Begin by instructing yourself, then you will receive instruction from others.
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Sometimes I don't understand how another can love her, is allowed to love her, since I love her so completely myself, so intensely, so fully, grasp nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her!
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Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.
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A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is also ignorant of his own language.
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Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint.
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Die Kunst an und für sich selbst ist edel; deßhalb fürchtet sich der Künstler nicht vor dem Gemeinen. Ja indem er es aufnimmt, ist es schon geadelt, und so sehen wir die größten Künstler mit Kühnheit ihr Majestätsrecht ausüben.
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It matters little whether a man be mathematically or philologically or artistically cultivated, so he be but cultivated.
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A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.
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The proper place for liberality is in the realm of the emotions.
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With little wit and ease to suit them, They whirl in narrow circling trails, Like kittens playing with their tails.
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Without my attempts in natural science, I should never have learned to know mankind such as it is. In nothing else can we so closely approach pure contemplation and thought, so closely observe the errors of the senses and of the understanding, the weak and strong points of character.
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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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Chess is the touchstone of intellect.