Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Just begin and the mind grows heated; continue, and the task will be completed!
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You shall abstain, shall abstain. That is the eternal song.
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Ah! my poor brain is racked and crazed, My spirit and senses amazed!
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Nature goes her own way, and all that to us seems an exception is really according to order.
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Neither art thou the man to catch the fiend and hold him!
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The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.
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We're really up against it, we poor women: A bachelor's a hard thing to convert.
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One errs as long as one strives.
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Water its living strength first shows, When obstacles its course oppose.
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Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them.
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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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The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.
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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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On top of the world, or in the depths of despair.
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Thank God when He lays a burden on thee, and thank Him when He takes it off.
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The question "From where does the poet get it?" addresses only the what, nobody learns anything about the how when asking that question.
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The master proves himselin recognizing his limitations.
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Wanted: A dog that neither barks nor bites, eats broken glass and shits diamonds.
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I consider him of no account who esteems himself just as the popular breath may chance to raise him.
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To appear at church every Sunday; to look down upon, and let himself be looked at for an hour by the congregation, is the best means of becoming popular which can be recommended to a young sovereign.
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Painting and tattooing the body is a return to animalism.
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Thou shalt abstain, Renounce, refrain.
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The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth. [Ger., Das erste und letzte, was vom Genie gefordert wird, ist Wahreits-Liebe.]
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It seems to me that every phenomenon, every fact, itself is the really interesting object. Whoever explains it, or connects it with other events, usually only amuses himself or makes sport of us, as, for instance, the naturalist or historian. But a single action or event is interesting, not because it is explainable, but because it is true.