Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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By nature we have no defect that could not become a strength, no strength that could not become a defect.
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The further one advances in experience, the closer one comes to the unfathomable; the more one learns to utilize experience, the more one recognizes that the unfathomable is of no practical value.
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Some of our weaknesses are born in us, others are the result of education; it is a question which of the two gives us most trouble.
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To understand one thing well is better than understanding many things by halves.
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Nothing is good for a nation but that which arises from its own core and its own general wants, without apish imitation of another.
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For usually people resist as long as they can to dismiss the fool they harbor in their bosom, they resist to confess a major mistake or to admit a truth that makes them despair.
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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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He who cannot love must learn to flatter.
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Animals, we have been told, are taught by their organs. Yes, I would add, and so are men, but men have this further advantage that they can also teach their organs in return.
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The follies of the wise man are known to himself, but hidden from the world.
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In all things, to serve from the lowest station upwards is necessary. To restrict yourself to a trade is best. For the narrow mind, whatever he attempts is still a trade; for the higher, an art; and the highest in doing one thing does all, or, to speak less paradoxically, in the one thing which he does rightly he sees the likeness of all that is done rightly.
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A reasonable man needs only to practice moderation to find happiness.
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Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.
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Always to distrust is an error, as well as always to trust.
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How circumscribed is woman's destiny!
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Nichts ist höher schätzen als der Werth des Tages.
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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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For the butterfly, mating and propagation involve the sacrifice of life, for the human being, the sacrifice of beauty.
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Every decided colour does a certain violence to the eye, and forces the organ to opposition.
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It is one of Heaven's best gifts to hold such a dear creature in one's arms.
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We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to erase them.
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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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And those whom once my song had cheered and gladdened, If still they live, rove through the world now saddened.