Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Happy contractedness of youth, nay, of mankind in general, that they think neither of the high nor the deep, of the true nor the false, but only of what is suited to their own conceptions.
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Let your trouble be Light will follow dark Though the heaven falls You may hear the lark.
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Even dirt glitters when the sun is shining upon it.
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Legislators and revolutionaries who promise both equality and liberty are visionaries and charlatans.
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You'll never attain it unless you know the feeling.
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In all times it is only individuals that have advanced science, not the age.
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Superstition is rooted in a much deeper and more sensitive layer of the psyche than skepticism.
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A great deal may be done by severity, more by love, but most by clear discernment and impartial justice.
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Never by reflection, but only by doing is self- knowledge possible to one.
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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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Let him who believes in immortality enjoy his happiness in silence; he has no reason to give himself airs about it.
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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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We can offer up much in the large, but to make sacrifices in little things is what we are seldom equal to.
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We must not take the faults of our youth with us into old age, for age brings along its own defects.
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Whoso shrinks from ideas ends by having nothing but sensations.
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It is unpleasant to miss even the most trifling thing to which we have been accustomed.
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To make a young couple love each other, it is only necessary to oppose and separate them.
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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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One criticizes the English for carrying their teapots wherever they go, even lugging them up Mount Etna. But doesn't every nationhave its teapot, in which, even when traveling, it brews the dried bundles of herbs brought from home?
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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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The sea is flowing ever, The land retains it never.
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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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The useful may be trusted to further itself, for many produce it and no one can do without it; but the beautiful must be specially encouraged, for few can present it, while yet all have need of it.
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Der Irrthum verhält sich gegen das Wahre wie der Schlaf gegen das Wachen. Ich habe bemerkt, daß man aus dem Irren sich wie erquickt wieder zu dem Wahren hinwende.