Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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On top of the world, or in the depths of despair.
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If you live criticizing people, you won't have time to love them.
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Reason can never be popular. Passions and feelings may become popular, but reason will always remain the sole property of a few eminent individuals.
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The most damaging prejudice consists of banning any kind of investigation of nature.
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Every man bears something within him that, if it were publicly announced, would excite feelings of aversion.
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A great artist... must be shaken by the naked truths that will not be comforted. This divine discontent, this disequilibrium, this state of inner tension is the source of artistic energy.
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If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.
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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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Everything which is properly business we must keep carefully separate from life. Business requires earnestness and method; life must have a freed handling.
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Nothing is more dangerous than solitude.
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Democracy does not race, it reaches the finish slowly but surely.
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Energy will do anything that can be done in this world.
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If you inquire what people are like here, I must answer, "The same as everywhere."
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Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity.
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What people call the spirit of the times is mostly their own spirit in which the times mirror themselves.
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If ever the Divine appeared on earth, it was in the person of Christ.
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The words you've bandied are sufficient; 'Tis deeds that I prefer to see.
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If we examine every stage of our lives, we find that from our first breath to our last we are under the constraint of circumstances. And yet we still possess the greatest of all freedoms, the power of developing our innermost selves in harmony with the moral order of the universe, and so winning peace of heart whatever obstacles we meet.
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Words are good, but there is something better. The best cannot be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the chief matter. Action can only be only understood and represented by the spirit.
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Music is so elevated that it is beyond the reach of intellect and there flows from it an influence which is all-potent, and which noone can explain.
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Children, love one another, and if that is not possible-at least try to put up with one another.
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To tremble before anticipated evils is to bemoan what thou hast never lost.
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We're really up against it, we poor women: A bachelor's a hard thing to convert.
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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.