Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Chess is the touchstone of intellect.
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If a man sets out to study all the laws, he will have no time left to transgress them.
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One errs as long as one strives.
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Do people conform to the instructions of us old ones? Each thinks he must know best about himself, and thus many are lost entirely.
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Das Klassische nenne ich das Gesunde und das Romantische das Kranke.
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A vain man can never be utterly ruthless: he wants to win applause and therefore he accommodates himself to others.
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If you miss the first buttonhole, you will not succeed in buttoning up your coat.
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Investigate what is, and not what pleases.
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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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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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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.
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It is in human nature to relax, when not compelled by personal advantage or disadvantage.
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Care is taken that trees do not grow into the sky.
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I curse all negative purism that tells me not to use a word from another language that either expresses something that my own language cannot or does that in a more delicate manner.
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As our inclinations, so our opinions.
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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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Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting over lost days... What you can do or think you can do, begin it. For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it.
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Great passions are incurable diseases.
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Man can only endure a certain degree of unhappiness; what is beyond that either annihilates him or passes by him and leaves him apathetic.
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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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You must either conquer and rule or serve and lose, suffer or triumph, be the anvil or the hammer.
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To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is to not have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything.
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Great endowments often announce themselves in youth in the form of singularity and awkwardness.
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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.