Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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You must either conquer and rule or serve and lose, suffer or triumph, be the anvil or the hammer.
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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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The person of analytic or critical intellect finds something ridiculous in everything. The person of synthetic or constructive intellect, in almost nothing.
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Art will always be art.
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We are pantheists as natural scientists, polytheists as poets, and monotheists as moral beings.
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Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.
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The bed of flowers Loosens amain, The beauteous snowdrops Droop o'er the plain. The crocus opens Its glowing bud, Like emeralds others, Others, like blood. With saucy gesture Primroses flare, And roguish violets, Hidden with care; And whatsoever There stirs and strives, The Spring's contented, If works and thrives.
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A useless life is an early death.
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The coward only threatens when he is safe.
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The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim.
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In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm... in the real world all rests on perseverance.
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I do not speak of what I cannot praise.
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The flowers of life are but visionary. How many pass away and leave no trace behind! How few yield any fruit,--and the fruit itself, how rarely does it ripen! And yet there are flowers enough; and is it not strange, my friend, that we should suffer the little that does really ripen to rot, decay, and perish unenjoyed?
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What we agree with leaves us inactive, but contradiction makes us productive.
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We don't get to know people when they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are like.
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Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.
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Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different.
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One cannot always be a hero, but one can always be a man.
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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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Only he who finds empiricism irksome is driven to method.
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Nine requisites for contented living: Health enough to make work a pleasure. Wealth enough to support your needs. Strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them. Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them. Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished. Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor. Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others. Faith enough to make real the things of God. Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.
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The greatest joy of a thinking man is to have searched the explored and to quietly revere the unexplored.
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The whole history of the Christian Church is a mixture of errors and violence.