Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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A man would create another man if one did not already exist, but a woman might live an eternity without even thinking of reproducing her own sex.
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All poetry is supposed to be instructive but in an unnoticeable manner; it is supposed to make us aware of what it would be valuable to instruct ourselves in; we must deduce the lesson on our own, just as with life.
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Voluntary dependence is the wonderful form of existence, and how could that be possible without love?
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Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.
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Oh, happy he who still hopes he can emerge from Error's boundless sea! - Faust.
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They should be ashamed of themselves, all these sober people!
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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.
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If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.
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To understand one thing well is better than understanding many things by halves.
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The universal subjugator, the commonplace.
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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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What do people mean when they talk about unhappiness? It is not so much unhappiness as impatience that from time to time possesses men, and then they choose to call themselves miserable.
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There is no surer method of evading the world than by following Art, and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by Art.
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Painting predicates what man wants to see, and what man ought to see, not what he ordinarily sees.
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Poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere, and at all times, in hundreds and hundreds of men.
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The fine emotions whence our lives we mold Lie in the earthly tumult dumb and cold.
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Forget not that the man who cannot enjoy his own natural gifts in silence, and find his reward in the exercise of them, will generally find himself badly off.
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The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.
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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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None are so hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes.
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A person hears only what they understand.
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The longer I live, the more it grieves me to see man, who occupies his supreme place for the very purpose of imposing his will upon nature, and freeing himself and his from an outrageous necessity--to see him taken up with some false notion, and doing just the opposite of what he wants to do; and then, because the whole bent of his mind is spoilt, bungling miserably over everything.
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I always seek the good that is in people and leave the bad to Him who made mankind and knows how to round off the corners.
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The smallest hair throws its shadow.