Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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The man of understanding finds everything laughable.
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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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Writing history is a method of getting rid of the past.
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No wise combatant underestimates their antagonist.
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Only the soul that loves is happy.
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I always had an aversion to your apostles of freedom; each but sought for himself freedom to do what he liked.
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The spirit from which we act is the principal matter.
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Fortunately, we can take in only so much misfortune; what exceeds that limit either destroys us or leaves us indifferent.
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Everything in science depends on what one calls an aperch, on becoming aware of what is at the bottom of the phenomena. Such becoming aware is infinitely fertile.
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There is no greater consolation for mediocrity than that the genius is not immortal.
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We love a girl for very different qualities than understanding. We love her for her beauty, her youth, her mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults, caprices and God knows what other inexpressible charms; but we do not love her understanding.
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The philosophers must station themselves in the middle.
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Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.
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A great scholar is seldom a great philosopher.
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For usually people resist as long as they can to dismiss the fool they harbor in their bosom, they resist to confess a major mistake or to admit a truth that makes them despair.
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The day is committed to error and floundering; success and achievement are matters of long range.
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A useless life is an early death.
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People may live as much retired from the world as they please; but sooner or later, before they are aware, they will find themselves debtor or creditor to somebody.
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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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Analysis and synthesis are both as necessary to the thinking spirit as inspiration and expiration to the organism.
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Freedom consists not in refusing to recognize anything above us, but in respecting something which is above us; for by respecting it, we raise ourselves to it, and, by our very acknowledgment, prove that we bear within ourselves what is higher, and are worthy to be on a level with it.
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Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.
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Great endowments often announce themselves in youth in the form of singularity and awkwardness.
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One never goes further than when they do not know where they are going.