Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.
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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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The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.
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What's it to you if I love you?
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On the pinnacle of success man does not stand firm long.
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How many years must a man do nothing, before he can at all know what is to be done and how to do it!
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Association with women is the basis of good manners.
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Every second is of infinite value.
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Try novelties for salesman's bait, For novelty wins everyone.
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Chess is the touchstone of intellect.
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An angel! Nonsense! Everybody so describes his mistress; and yet I find it impossible to tell you how perfect she is, or why she is so perfect: suffice it to say she has captivated all my senses.
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Behaviour is a mirror in which everyone shows his image.
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A true German can't stand the French, Yet willingly he drinks their wines.
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Character calls forth character.
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Fools and wise men are equally harmless. It is the half-fools and half-wise that are dangerous.
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The decline in literature indicates a decline in the nation. The two keep pace in their downward tendency.
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The useful may be trusted to further itself, for many produce it and no one can do without it; but the beautiful must be specially encouraged, for few can present it, while yet all have need of it.
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The older I get the more I trust in the law according to which the rose and the lily bloom.
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English plays, Atrocious in content, Absurd in form, Objectionable in action, Execrable English Theatre.
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A leaf that is destined to grow large is full of grooves and wrinkles at the start. Now if one has no patience and wants it smooth offhand like a willow leaf, there is trouble ahead.
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Doesn't surprise me that Christ our Lord preferred to live with whores and sinners, seeing I go in for that myself.
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One is led astray alike by sympathy and coldness, by praise and by blame.
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The main thing is to have a soul that loves the truth and harbours it where he finds it. And another thing: truth requires constant repetition, because error is being preached about us all the time, and not only by isolated individuals but by the masses. In the newspapers and encyclopedias, in schools and universities, everywhere error rides high and basks in the consciousness of having the majority on its side.
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Clever people are always the best conversations lexicon.