Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.
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What we agree with leaves us inactive, but contradiction makes us productive.
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It is with art as with love: How can a man of the world,with all his distractions, keep the inwardness which an artist must possess if he hopes to attain perfection? That inwardness which the spectator must share if he is to understand the work as the artist wishes and hopes... Believe me, talents are like virtues; either you must love them for their own sake or renounce them altogether. And they are only recognized and rewarded when we have practised them in secret, like a dangerous mystery."
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Here too it’s masquerade, I find: As everywhere, the dance of mind. I grasped a lovely masked procession, And caught things from a horror show… I’d gladly settle for a false impression, If it would last a little longer, though.
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It is the nature of grace always to fill spaces that have been empty.
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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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I had rather be Mercury, the smallest among seven planets, revolving round the sun, than the first among five moons revolving round Saturn.
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Correction does much, but encouragement does more. Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.
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It is only necessary to grow old to become more charitable and even indulgent. I see no fault committed by others that I have not committed myself.
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Was glänzt, ist für den Augenblick geboren;das Echte bleibt der Nachwelt unverloren.
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Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint.
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Every form correctly seen is beautiful.
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Someday someone will write a pathology of experimental physics and bring to light all those swindles which subvert our reason, beguile our judgement and, what is worse, stand in the way of any practical progress. The phenomena must be freed once and for all from their grim torture chamber of empiricism, mechanism, and dogmatism; they must be brought before the jury of man's common sense.
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In every artist there is a touch of audacity without which no talent is conceivable.
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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 true, prescriptive artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless artist, following blind instinct, after an appearance of naturalness. The one leads to the highest peaks of art, the other to its lowest depths.
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Amerika, du hast es besser-als unser Kontinent, der alte.
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The ideal of beauty is simplicity and tranquility.
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All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.
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Where the light is brightest, the shadows are deepest.
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No skill or art is needed to grow old; the trick is to endure it.
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Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.
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Seeking with the soul the land of the Greeks.
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What is fruitful alone is true.