Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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The world is so great and rich, and life so full of variety, that you can never lack occasions for poems.
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Whatever liberates our spirit, without also giving us mastery over ourselves, is destructive.
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We often feel that we lack something, and seem to see that very quality in someone else, promptly attributing all our own qualities to him too, and a kind of ideal contentment as well. And so the happy mortal is a model of complete perfection--which we have ourselves created.
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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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Great passions are incurable diseases.
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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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Wishes are premonitions of abilities.
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New inventions can and will be made; however, nothing new can be thought of that concerns moral man. Everything has already been thought and said which at best we can express in different forms and give new expressions to.
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There are few who have at once thought and capacity for action. Thought expands, but lames; action animates, but narrows.
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What sort of God would it be, who only pushed from without.
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The rabble also vent their rage in words.
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People are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake what they see others do, whether they have an aptitude for it or not.
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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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No prudent antagonist thinks light of his adversaries.
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Nothing is more odious than the majority, for it consists of a few powerful leaders, a certain number of accommodating scoundrels and submissive weaklings, and a mass of men who trot after them without thinking, or knowing their own minds.
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If a good person does you wrong, act as though you had not noticed it. If we practice and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, soon the wholeworld will be blind and toothless.
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I could never have known so well how paltry men are, and how little they care for really high aims, if I had not tested them by my scientific researches. Thus I saw that most men only care for science so far as they get a living by it, and that they worship even error when it affords them a subsistence.
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If you wish to advance into the infinite, explore the finite in all directions.
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Generally speaking, an author's style is a faithful copy of his mind. If you would write a lucid style, let there first be light in your own mind; and if you would write a grand style, you ought to have a grand character.
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Mysterious in the light of day, nature retains her veil, despite our clamours: That which she does not willingly display cannot be wrenched from her with levers, screws and hammers.
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Tomorrow sees undone, what happens not to-day; Still forward press, nor never tire! The possible, with steadfast trust, Resolve should be by the forelock grasp. Then she will ne'er let go her clasp, And labors on, because she must.
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Culture which smooth the whole world licks, Also unto the devil sticks.
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You'll never attain it unless you know the feeling.
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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.