Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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The wealth that cannot be administered is a burden.
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The coward only threatens when he is safe.
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Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.
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A person hears only what they understand.
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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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The highest happiness of man ... is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.
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It is working within limits that the craftsman reveals himself.
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The confidant of my vices is my master, though he were my valet.
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I wish the crowd to feel itself well treated, Especially since it lives and lets me live.
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Man can find no better retreat from the world than art, and man can find no stronger link with the world than art.
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Plunge boldly into the thick of life!
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We cannot too soon convince ourselves how easily we may be dispensed with in the world. What important personages we imagine ourselves to be! We think that we alone are the life of the circle in which we move; in our absence, we fancy that life, existence, breath will come to a general pause, and, alas, the gap which we leave is scarcely perceptible, so quickly is it filled again; nay, it is often the place, if not of something better, at least for something more agreeable.
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A purpose you impart is no longer your own.
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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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Lose this day loitering 'Twill be the same old story, Tomorrow and the next, Even more dilatory. Whatever you would do, Or dream of doing, begin it! Boldness has power, genius, and magic in it. Begin it now.
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Few men have imagination enough for reality.
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Insofar as he makes use of his healthy senses, man himself is the best and most exact scientific instrument possible. The greatest misfortune of modern physics is that its experiments have been set apart from man, as it were, physics refuses to recognize nature in anything not shown by artificial instruments, and even uses this as a measure of its accomplishments.
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Nothing is more dangerous than solitude.
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I have heard myself accused of being an opponent, an enemy of mathematics, which no one can value more highly than I, for it accomplishes the very thing whose achievement has been denied me.
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I let everyone follow his own bent, that I may be free to follow mine.
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Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.
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To have a positive religion is not necessary. To be in harmony with yourself and the universe is what counts, and this is possible without positive and specific formulation in words.
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The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. Whatever you think you can do, or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, power and grace.
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Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.