Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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Never by reflection, but only by doing is self- knowledge possible to one.
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The art of living rightly is like all arts; it must be learned and practiced with incessant care.
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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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All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.
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Oh happy he who still can hope in our day to breathe the truth while plunged in seas of error! What we don't know is really what we need, and what we know is of no use to us whatever!
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On the pinnacle of success man does not stand firm long.
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Where there is much light, the shadows are deepest. [Ger., Wo viel Licht is, ist starker Schatten.]
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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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If you miss the first buttonhole, you will not succeed in buttoning up your coat.
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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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The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.
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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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Time flies, and what is past is done.
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If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.
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Without haste! without rest! Bind the motto to thy breast! Bear it with thee as a spell; Storm or sunshine, guard it well.
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Rash combat oft immortalizes man; if he should fall, he is renowned in song; but after-ages reckon not the ceaseless tears which the forsaken woman sheds. Poets tell us not of the many nights consumed in weeping, or of the dreary days wherein her anguished soul vainly yearns to call her loved one back.
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Who strives always to the utmost, him can we save.
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The old lose one of the greatest privileges of man, for they are no longer judged by their contemporaries.
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Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.
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To live as one likes is plebian the noble man aspires to order and law.
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A true German can't stand the French, Yet willingly he drinks their wines.
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Perseverance is a silent power that grows irresistibly greater with time.