Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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Art is in itself noble; that is why the artist has no fear of what is common. This, indeed, is already ennobled when he takes it up.
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What makes poetry? A full heart, brimful of one noble passion.
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All that is transitory is but a metaphor.
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It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.
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One criticizes the English for carrying their teapots wherever they go, even lugging them up Mount Etna. But doesn't every nationhave its teapot, in which, even when traveling, it brews the dried bundles of herbs brought from home?
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They should be ashamed of themselves, all these sober people!
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Bin ich ein Gott? Mir wird so licht!
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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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There are people who pay attention to the weaknesses of their friends; that is to no avail. I have always closely watched and profited from the strengths of my adversaries.
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Poor fool! in whose petty estimation all things are little.
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Distrust those in whom the desire to punish is strong.
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Enjoy what you can, endure what you must.
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Rash, inexperienced youth holds itself a chosen instrument, and allows itself unbounded license.
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Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him.
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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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Whatever Nature undertakes, she can only accomplish it in a sequence. She never makes a leap.
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If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.
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It is better to be doing the most insignificant thing than to reckon even a half-hour insignificant.
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Let's plunge ourselves into the roar of time, the whirl of accident; may pain and pleasure, success and failure, shift as they will -- it's only action that can make a man.
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If a man sets out to study all the laws, he will have no time left to transgress them.
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The happy do not believe in miracles.
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If you want to make life easy, make it hard.
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Whatever is the object of a saint's hope is the subject of his prayer.