Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiss nichts von seiner eigenen.He who is ignorant of foreign languages, knows not his own.
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A leaf that is destined to grow large is full of grooves and wrinkles at the start. Now if one has no patience and wants it smooth offhand like a willow leaf, there is trouble ahead.
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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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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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He who does not stretch himself according to the coverlet finds his feet uncovered.
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Whoso shrinks from ideas ends by having nothing but sensations.
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No one would talk much in society, if he knew how often he misunderstands others.
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The rabble also vent their rage in words.
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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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Correction does much, but encouragement does more. Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.
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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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Hatred is active displeasure, envy passive. We need not wonder that envy turns to soon to hatred.
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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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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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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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What is predestination? Answer: God is more powerful and wiser than we are, therefore he deals with us according to his pleasure.
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What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.
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The whole history of the Christian Church is a mixture of errors and violence.
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Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded.
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Several classical sayings that one likes to repeat had quite a different meaning from the ones later times attributed to them.
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Freedom consists not in refusing to recognize anything above us, but in respecting something which is above us; for by respecting it, we raise ourselves to it, and, by our very acknowledgment, prove that we bear within ourselves what is higher, and are worthy to be on a level with 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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Life seems so vulgar, so easily content with the commonplace things of every day, and yet it always nurses and cherishes certain higher claims in secret, and looks about for the means of satisfying them.
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The sea is flowing ever, The land retains it never.