Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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There are but two roads that lead to an important goal and to the doing of great things: strength and perseverance. Strength is the lot of but a few privileged men; but austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistibly greater with time.
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Nature! We are surrounded by her and locked in her clasp: powerless to leave her, and powerless to come closer to her. Unasked and unwarned she takes us up into the whirl of her dance, and hurries on with us till we are weary and fall from her arms.
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The rainbow mirrors human aims and action. Think, and more clearly wilt thou grasp it, seeing Life is but light in many-hued reflection.
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Self knowledge is best learned not by contemplation, but by action.
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So, lively brisk old fellow, don't let age get you down. White hairs or not, you can still be a lover.
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Time itself is an element.
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There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.
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Someday perhaps the inner light will shine forth from us, and the we'll need no other light.
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Nature's crown is Love. Only through Love can we come near her. She puts gulfs between all things, and all things strive to be interfused. She isolates everything, that she may draw everything together. With a few draughts from the cup of Love she repays for a life full of trouble.
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One needs only to get old to become milder; I don't see anyone make a mistake I hadn't also made.
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Patriotism ruins history.
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The eternal feminine draws us on high.
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Tränenreiche Männer sind gut. Verlasse mich jeder, der trocknen Herzens, trockner Augen ist!
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Knowst thou the land where the lemon trees bloom,Where the gold orange glows in the deep thicket's gloom,Where a wind ever soft from the blue heaven blows,And the groves are of laurel and myrtle and rose?
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This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.
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A man is really alive only when he delights in the good-will of others.
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One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
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When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one's hands full just to be able to remove their trash.
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Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das LebenDer täglich sie erobern muß.
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Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.
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Theories usually result from the precipitate reasoning of an impatient mind which would like to be rid of phenomena and replaces them with images, concepts, indeed often with mere words.
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A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world's torrent.
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Es gibt Fälle, ... wo jeder Trost niederträchtig und Verzweiflung Pflicht ist.
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The first and last thing demanded of genius is love of truth.