Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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A useless life is an early death.
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Poor fool! in whose petty estimation all things are little.
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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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Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.
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A man's foibles are what makes him lovable.
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True art can only spring from the intimate linking of the serious and the playful.
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Of the truly creative no one is ever master; it must be left to go its own way.
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Faith is like private capital, stored in one's own house. It is like a public savings bank or loan office, from which individuals receive assistance in their days of need; but here the creditor quietly takes his interest for himself.
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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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But when all is said, the greatest art is to limit and isolate oneself.
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It is one of Heaven's best gifts to hold such a dear creature in one's arms.
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The person of analytic or critical intellect finds something ridiculous in everything. The person of synthetic or constructive intellect, in almost nothing.
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Enjoy what you can, endure what you must.
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The new vulcanism is really a daring attempt to connect the present, incomprehensible world to a past, unknown one.
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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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What one has wished for in youth, in old age one has in abundance.
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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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There are few who have at once thought and capacity for action. Thought expands, but lames; action animates, but narrows.
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The field of experience is the whole universe in all directions. Theory remains shut up within the limits of human faculties.
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Good children's literature appeals not only to the child in the adult, but to the adult in the child.
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It is a great pleasure to transport one's-self into the spirit of the times; to see how a wise man has thought before us, and to what a glorious height we have at last carried it.
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Wishes are premonitions of abilities.
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Correction does much, but encouragement does more. Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.