Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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But when all is said, the greatest art is to limit and isolate oneself.
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What one has wished for in youth, in old age one has in abundance.
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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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Great endowments often announce themselves in youth in the form of singularity and awkwardness.
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No prudent antagonist thinks light of his adversaries.
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Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint.
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The world is so full of simpletons and madmen, that one need not seek them in a madhouse.
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Smoothly and lightly the golden seed by the furrow is covered.
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The happy do not believe in miracles.
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Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.
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Poor fool! in whose petty estimation all things are little.
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Don't give us your doubts, gives us your certainties, for we have doubts enough of our own.
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Time flies, and what is past is done.
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He who wishes to exert a useful influence must be careful to insult nothing. Let him not be troubled by what seems absurd, but concentrate his energies to the creation of what is good. He must not demolish, but build. He must raise temples where mankind may come and partake of the purest pleasure.
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It is not enough to have knowledge; one must apply it. It is not enough to have wishes; one must also accomplish it.
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We are pantheists when we study nature, polytheists when we write poetry, monotheists in our morality.
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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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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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True art can only spring from the intimate linking of the serious and the playful.
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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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I hate everything that merely instructs me without augmenting or directly invigorating my activity.
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Enjoy what you can, endure what you must.
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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.