Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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What is my life if I am no longer useful to others.
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Art is based on a strong sentiment of religion,--on a profound and mighty earnestness; hence it is so prone to co-operate with religion.
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The Bible grows more beautiful, as we grow in our understanding of it.
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Hold your powers together for something good and let everything go that is for you without result and is not suited to you.
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Whatever is the object of a saint's hope is the subject of his prayer.
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Nothing is more disgusting than the majority: because it consists of a few powerful predecessors, of rogues who adapt themselves, of weak who assimilate themselves, and the masses who imitate without knowing at all what they want.
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People have a peculiar pleasure in making converts, that is, in causing others to enjoy what they enjoy, thus finding their own likeness represented and reflected back to them.
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People always fancy that we must become old to become wise; but, in truth, as years advance, it is hard to keep ourselves as wise as we were.
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There is a great difference, whether the poet seeks the particular for the sake of the general or sees the general in the particular. From the former procedure there ensues allegory, in which the particular serves only as illustration, as example of the general. The latter procedure, however, is genuinely the nature of poetry; it expresses something particular, without thinking of the general or pointing to it.
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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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Rejoice that you have still have a long time to live, before the thought comes to you that there is nothing more in the world to see.
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Fret not over the irretrievable, but ever act as if thy life were just begun.
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Thou shalt abstain, Renounce, refrain.
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My counsel is, to force nothing, and rather to trifle and sleep away all unproductive days and hours, than on such days to compose something that will afterwards give no pleasure.
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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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Enjoy what thou has inherited from thy sires if thou wouldn't really possess it. What we employ and use is never an oppressive burden; what the moment brings forth, that only can it profit by.
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Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.
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Why go further and further, Look, happiness is right here. Learn how to grab hold of luck, For luck is always there.
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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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The art of living rightly is like all arts; it must be learned and practiced with incessant care.
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Wealth and speed are what the world admires, what each pursues. Railways, express mails, steamships and every possible facility for communications are the achievement in which the civilized world view and revels, only to languish in mediocrity by that very fact. Indeed, the effect of this diffusion is to spread the culture of the mediocre.
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Over all the mountain tops is peace. In all treetops you perceive scarcely a breath. The little birds in the forest are silent. Wait then; soon, you too, will have peace.
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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.