Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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If you inquire what people are like here, I must answer, "The same as everywhere."
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Whatever Nature undertakes, she can only accomplish it in a sequence. She never makes a leap.
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Manners form the great charm of women.
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Every day I observe more and more the folly of judging of others by ourselves; and I have so much trouble with myself, and my own heart is in such constant agitation, that I am well content to let others pursue their own course, if they only allow me the same privilege.
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Great thoughts and a pure heart, that is what we should ask from God.
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Democracy does not race, it reaches the finish slowly but surely.
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Any trifle is enough to entertain two lovers.
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Misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less frequent.
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Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him.
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It is a misfortune to pass at once from observation to conclusion, and to regard both as of equal value; but it befalls many a student.
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Analysis and synthesis are both as necessary to the thinking spirit as inspiration and expiration to the organism.
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The use of a thing is only a part of its significance. To know anything thoroughly, to have the full command of it in all its appliances, we must study it on its own account, independently of any special application.
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He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line.
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The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are of subordinate importance, is the conflict of skepticism with faith.
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All our knowledge is symbolic.
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Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.
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The world is so great and rich, and life so full of variety, that you can never lack occasions for poems.
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Nothing is worse than active ignorance.
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All truths are old, and all that we have to do is recognize and utter them anew.
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Every reader, if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author.
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Let no one be like another, yet everyone like the highest. How is this done? Be each one perfect in himself.
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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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We can offer up much in the large, but to make sacrifices in little things is what we are seldom equal to.
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Beauty can never really understand itself.