Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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In politics people throw themselves, as on a sickbed, from one side to the other in the belief they will lie more comfortably.
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Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them.
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Alas, I have studied philosophy, the law as well as medicine, and to my sorrow, theology; studied them well with ardent zeal, yet here I am, a wretched fool, no wiser than I was before.
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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 thinking person has the strange characteristic to like to create a fantasy in the place of the unsolved problem, a fantasy that stays with the person even when the problem has been solved and truth made its appearance.
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Oh, happy he who still hopes he can emerge from Error's boundless sea! - Faust.
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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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Alas! how much there is in education, and in our social institutions, to prepare us and our children for insanity.
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Age merely shows what children we remain.
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Here too it’s masquerade, I find: As everywhere, the dance of mind. I grasped a lovely masked procession, And caught things from a horror show… I’d gladly settle for a false impression, If it would last a little longer, though.
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A purpose you impart is no longer your own.
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Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.
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Let your trouble be Light will follow dark Though the heaven falls You may hear the lark.
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Women are silver dishes into which we put golden apples.
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A person hears only what they understand.
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Experience is only half of experience.
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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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What is predestination? Answer: God is more powerful and wiser than we are, therefore he deals with us according to his pleasure.
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No one knows what he is doing so long as he is acting rightly; but of what is wrong one is always conscious.
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He is happy as well as great who needs neither to obey nor to command in order to be something.
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Give me those days with heart in riot, The depths of bliss that touched on pain, The force of hate, and love's disquiet- Ah, give me back my youth again!
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As for solitude, I cannot understand how certain people seek to lay claim to intellectual stature, nobility of soul and strength of character, yet have not the slightest feeling for seclusion; for solitude, I maintain, when joined with a quiet contemplation of nature, a serene and conscious faith in creation and the Creator, and a few vexations from outside is the only school for a mind of lofty endowment.
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It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.
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We can offer up much in the large, but to make sacrifices in little things is what we are seldom equal to.