Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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I am certain that I have been here as I am now a thousand times before, and I hope to return a thousand times... Man is a dialogue between nature and God. On other planets this dialogue will doubtless be of a higher and profounder character. What is lacking is Self-Knowledge. After that the rest will follow.
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Method will teach you to win time.
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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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Beauty can never really understand itself.
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A phenomenon like Mozart remains an inexplicable thing.
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The highest happiness, the purest joys of life, wear out at last.
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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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Age childish makes, they say, but 'tis not true; We're only genuine children still in Age's season. [Ger., Das Alter macht nicht kindisch, wie man spricht, Es findet uns nur noch als wahre Kinder.]
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To understand one thing well is better than understanding many things by halves.
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For that is love's nature that it lays claim to exclusive right and that all other claims are nil.
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The smallest hair throws its shadow.
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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.
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I do not now begin, - I still adore Her whom I early cherish'd in my breast; Then once again with prudence dispossess'd, And to whose heart I'm driven back once more. The love of Petrarch, that all-glorious love, Was unrequited, and, alas, full sad.
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Age merely shows what children we remain.
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Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.
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The wealth that cannot be administered is a burden.
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The eye doesn't see any shapes, it sees only what is differentiated through light and dark or through colors.
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I let everyone follow his own bent, that I may be free to follow mine.
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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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No sacred fane requires us to submit to insult.
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Is not the core of nature in the heart of man?
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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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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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Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.