Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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I must consider more closely this cycle of good and bad days which I find coursing within myself. Passion, attachment, the urge to action, inventiveness, performance, order all alternate and keep their orbit; cheerfulness, vigor, energy, flexibility and fatigue, serenity as well as desire. Nothing disturbs the cycle for I lead a simple life, but I must still find the time and order in which I rotate.
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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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Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.
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Wealth and speed are what the world admires, what each pursues. Railways, express mails, steamships and every possible facility for communications are the achievement in which the civilized world view and revels, only to languish in mediocrity by that very fact. Indeed, the effect of this diffusion is to spread the culture of the mediocre.
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The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.
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There is no remedy but love for the great superiority of others.
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Character - in things great and small - is indicated when a man (or person) pursues with sustained follow-through what he feels himself capable of doing.
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Can a sparrow know how a stork feels?
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Our virtues and view spring from one root.
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The fine emotions whence our lives we mold Lie in the earthly tumult dumb and cold.
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Painting and tattooing the body is a return to animalism.
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To be sure, we have inherited abilities, but our development we owe to thousands of influences coming from the world around us from which we appropriate what we can and what is suitable to us.
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Wherever a man may happen to turn, whatever a man may undertake, he will always end up by returning to that path which nature has marked out for him.
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We cannot and must not get rid of nor deny our characteristics. But we can give them shape and direction.
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Too rigid scruples are concealed pride.
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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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The smallest hair throws its shadow.
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Personality is everything in art and poetry.
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Love of truth shows itself in this, that a man knows how to find and value the good in everything.
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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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You must be either the servant or the master, the hammer or the anvil.
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Thou shalt abstain, Renounce, refrain.
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One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.