Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Neither a work of nature nor one of art we get to know when they have been finished; we must surprise them in the process of beingcreated so as to understand them to some degree.
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One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.
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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 master proves himselin recognizing his limitations.
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When you lose interest in anything, you also lose the memory for it.
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Whoever aspiring, struggles on, for him there is salvation.
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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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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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To accept good advice is but to increase one's own ability.
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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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Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them.
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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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Superstition is part of the poetry of life.
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There is a great difference, whether the poet seeks the particular for the sake of the general or sees the general in the particular. From the former procedure there ensues allegory, in which the particular serves only as illustration, as example of the general. The latter procedure, however, is genuinely the nature of poetry; it expresses something particular, without thinking of the general or pointing to it.
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Just begin and the mind grows heated; continue, and the task will be completed!
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Such is the frailty of man that even where he makes the truest and most forcible impression in the memory, in the heart of his beloved, there also he must perish.
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I wish the stage were as narrow as the wire of a tighrope dancer so that no incompetent would dare step upon it.
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A phenomenon like Mozart remains an inexplicable thing.
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I curse all negative purism that tells me not to use a word from another language that either expresses something that my own language cannot or does that in a more delicate manner.
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All one needs to do is declare oneself free and one will immediately feel dependent. If you dare to declare yourself dependent, you feel independent.
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Everything perfect in its kind has to transcend its own kind, it must become something different and incomparable. In some notes the nightingale is still a bird; then it rises above its class and seems to suggest to every winged creature what singing is truly like.
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The Evil One has left, the evil ones remain.
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Limitation of aims is the mother of wisdom and the secret of achievement.
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The day is for mistake and error, sequence of time for success and carrying out. The one who anticipates is master of the day.