Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
-
What is fruitful alone is true.
-
I hate everything that merely instructs me without augmenting or directly invigorating my activity.
-
Never let a day pass without looking at some perfect work of art, hearing some great piece of music and reading, in part, some great book.
-
What right those who govern have to govern they don't question, they just govern. Whether the people have a right to depose them that doesn't concern them. All they are concerned with is that the people will not be tempted to depose them.
-
Smoothly and lightly the golden seed by the furrow is covered.
-
The public wishes itself to be managed like a woman; one must say nothing to it except what it likes to hear.
-
Much there is I can stand, and most things not easy to suffer I bear with quiet resolve, just as a god commands it. Only a few I find as repugnant as snakes and poison - These four: tobacco smoke, bedbugs, garlic, and †.
-
Traveling is like gambling: it is always connected with winning and losing and generally where it is least expected we receive, more or less than what we hoped for.
-
He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.
-
A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is also ignorant of his own language.
-
Der thörigste von allen Irrthümern ist, wenn junge gute Köpfe glauben, ihre Originalität zu verlieren, indem sie das Wahre anerkennen, was von andern schon anerkannt worden.
-
That which is eternal in Woman lifts us above.
-
Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.
-
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.
-
This is what they all come to who exclusively harp on experience. They do not stop to consider that experience is only one half of experience.
-
Great passions are incurable diseases.
-
Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded.
-
Sin writes histories, goodness is silent.
-
Mannerism is always longing to have done, and has no true enjoyment in work. A genuine, really great talent, on the other hand, has its greatest happiness in execution.
-
Man errs, till he has ceased to strive.
-
I consider him of no account who esteems himself just as the popular breath may chance to raise him.
-
He who moves not forward, goes backward.
-
Doubt can only be removed by action.
-
Every man must form himself as a particular being, seeking, however, to attain that general idea of which all mankind are constituents.