Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Clever people are always the best conversations lexicon.
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Who strives always to the utmost, him can we save.
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If you are convinced of a matter, you must take sides or you don't deserve to succeed.
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It is the nature of grace always to fill spaces that have been empty.
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The proper place for liberality is in the realm of the emotions.
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Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.
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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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Writing is busy idleness.
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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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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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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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English plays, Atrocious in content, Absurd in form, Objectionable in action, Execrable English Theatre.
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Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself.
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A judge who cannot punish, in the end associates themselves with the criminal.
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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.
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The beginning of faith is the beginning of fruitfulness; but the beginning of unbelief, however glittering, is empty.
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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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Without my attempts in natural science, I should never have learned to know mankind such as it is. In nothing else can we so closely approach pure contemplation and thought, so closely observe the errors of the senses and of the understanding, the weak and strong points of character.
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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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There is a great difference, whether the poet seeks the particular for the sake of the general or sees the general in the particular. From the former procedure there ensues allegory, in which the particular serves only as illustration, as example of the general. The latter procedure, however, is genuinely the nature of poetry; it expresses something particular, without thinking of the general or pointing to it.
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One is led astray alike by sympathy and coldness, by praise and by blame.
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The public wishes itself to be managed like a woman; one must say nothing to it except what it likes to hear.
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Smoothly and lightly the golden seed by the furrow is covered.