Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed That can make life a garden.
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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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People are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake what they see others do, whether they have an aptitude for it or not.
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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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The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth. [Ger., Das erste und letzte, was vom Genie gefordert wird, ist Wahreits-Liebe.]
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One is led astray alike by sympathy and coldness, by praise and by blame.
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A state of true and universal tolerance is best ensured by leaving alone the peculiarities of men and peoples.
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A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
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I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator.
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Seeking with the soul the land of the Greeks.
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Neither art thou the man to catch the fiend and hold him!
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Whatever necessity lays upon thee, endure; whatever she commands, do.
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Es ist so gewiß als wunderbar, daß Wahrheit und Irrthum aus Einer Quelle entstehen; deßwegen man oft dem Irrthum nicht schaden darf, weil man zugleich der Wahrheit schadet.
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Generally speaking, an author's style is a faithful copy of his mind. If you would write a lucid style, let there first be light in your own mind; and if you would write a grand style, you ought to have a grand character.
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The shudder of awe is humanity's highest faculty, Even though this world is forever altering its values.
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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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The artist who is not also a craftsman is no good; but, alas, most of our artists are nothing else.
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A king there was once reigning, Who had a goodly flea, Him loved he without feigning, As his own son were he!
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All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.
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Nichts ist höher schätzen als der Werth des Tages.
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What's it to you if I love you?
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To live as one likes is plebian the noble man aspires to order and law.
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So then the year is repeating its old story again. We are come once more, thank God! to its most charming chapter. The violets and the Mayflowers are as its inscriptions or vignettes. It always makes a pleasant impression on us, when we open again at these pages of the book of life.
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And step by step, along the path of life, There's nothing true but Heaven.