Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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I have never looked at foreign countries or gone there but with the purpose of getting to know the general human qualities that are spread all over the earth in very different forms, and then to find these qualities again in my own country and to recognize and to further them.
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The universal subjugator, the commonplace.
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For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.
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I let everyone follow his own bent, that I may be free to follow mine.
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Error is to truth as sleep is to waking. I have observed that one turns, as if refreshed, from error back to truth.
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We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.
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Look at a man the way he is and he only becomes worse, but look at him as if he were what he could be, then he becomes what he should be.
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Voluntary dependence is the wonderful form of existence, and how could that be possible without love?
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The highest happiness of man ... is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.
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The mob has nothing to lose, everything to gain.
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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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The person who in shaky times also wavers only increases the evil, but the person of firm decision fashions the universe.
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The iron hand of necessity commands, and her stern decree is supreme law, to which the gods even must submit. In deep silence rules the uncounselled sister of eternal fate. Whatever she lays upon thee, endure; perform whatever she commands.
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Wer nichts wagt, gerwinnt nichts. Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen aß,Wer nie die kummervollen NächteAuf seinem Bette weinend saß,Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte.
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Thus I reel from desire to fulfillment and in fulfillment languish for desire.
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The whole history of the Christian Church is a mixture of errors and violence.
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Men in a state of nature, uncivilized nations, children, have a great fondness for colors in their utmost brightness, and especially for yellow-red.
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Culture which smooth the whole world licks, Also unto the devil sticks.
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Is not the core of nature in the heart of man?
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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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If you don't know foreign languages, you don't know anything about your own.
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Water its living strength first shows, When obstacles its course oppose.
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It is better to be doing the most insignificant thing than to reckon even a half-hour insignificant.