Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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He who does not stretch himself according to the coverlet finds his feet uncovered.
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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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Writing history is a method of getting rid of the past.
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What is my life if I am no longer useful to others.
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Thou shalt abstain, Renounce, refrain.
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Ah! my poor brain is racked and crazed, My spirit and senses amazed!
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I let everyone follow his own bent, that I may be free to follow mine.
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Stood I, O Nature! man alone in thee, Then were it worth one's while a man to be.
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Who is the happiest man? He who is alive to the merit of others, and can rejoice in their enjoyment as if it were his own.
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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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If society gives up the right to impose the death penalty, then self-help will appear again and personal vendettas will be around the corner.
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Is not the core of nature in the heart of man?
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One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.
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When translating one must proceed up to the intranslatable; only then one becomes aware of the foreign nation and the foreign tongue.
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If you don't know foreign languages, you don't know anything about your own.
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A great scholar is seldom a great philosopher.
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All things are only transitory.
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The highest happiness, the purest joys of life, wear out at last.
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Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?
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Personality is everything in art and poetry.
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We're really up against it, we poor women: A bachelor's a hard thing to convert.
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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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Stupidity is without anxiety.
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Art rests on a kind of religious sense, on a deep, steadfast earnestness; and on this account it unites so readily with religion.