Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Doubt can only be removed by action.
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The century is advanced, but every individual begins afresh.
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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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In all times it is only individuals that have advanced science, not the age.
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Truth is a torch, but a terrific one; therefore we all try to reach it with closed eyes, lest we should be scorched.
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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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Every situation--nay, every moment--is of infinite worth; for it is the representative of a whole eternity.
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My counsel is, to force nothing, and rather to trifle and sleep away all unproductive days and hours, than on such days to compose something that will afterwards give no pleasure.
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We can always redeem the man who aspires and strives.
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Women are silver dishes into which we put golden apples.
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Oh happy he who still can hope in our day to breathe the truth while plunged in seas of error! What we don't know is really what we need, and what we know is of no use to us whatever!
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Woe to him who would ascribe something like reason to Chance, and make a religion of surrendering to it.
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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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None are so hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes.
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Every man must form himself as a particular being, seeking, however, to attain that general idea of which all mankind are constituents.
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In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.
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Too rigid scruples are concealed pride.
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Hold your powers together for something good and let everything go that is for you without result and is not suited to you.
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The modern age has a false sense of superiority, because of the great mass of data at its disposal. But the valid criterion of distinction is rather the extent to which man knows how to form and master the material at his command.
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Well-mannered children could be conceived if the parents were well-mannered.
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Thou shalt abstain, Renounce, refrain.
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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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The thinking person has the strange characteristic to like to create a fantasy in the place of the unsolved problem, a fantasy that stays with the person even when the problem has been solved and truth made its appearance.
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A person is never happy till their vague strivings has itself marked out its proper limitations.