Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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A man would create another man if one did not already exist, but a woman might live an eternity without even thinking of reproducing her own sex.
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To live within limits. To want one thing. Or a few things very much and love them dearly. Cling to them, survey them from every angle. Become one with them - that is what makes the poet, the artist, the human being.
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The church alone beyond all question Has for ill-gotten goods the right digestion.
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He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line.
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Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.
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Know'st thou yesterday, its aim and reason? Work'st thou will today for worthier things? Then calmly wait the morrow's hidden season, And fear thou not, what hap soe'er it brings.
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I curse all negative purism that tells me not to use a word from another language that either expresses something that my own language cannot or does that in a more delicate manner.
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No two people see the world exactly alike, and different temperaments will often apply the same principle, recognized by both, differently. Even one and the same person won't always maintain the same views and judgments: earlier convictions must give way to later ones.
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When a wife has a good husband, it is easily seen on her face.
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The history of mankind is his character.
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What dazzles, for the moment spends its spirit; Whats genuine, shall posterity inherit.
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Create, artist, do not talk.
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Tolerance should, strictly speaking, be only a passing mood; it ought to lead to acknowledgment and appreciation. To tolerate a person is to affront him.
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A good man, through obscurest aspirations Has still an instinct of the one true way.
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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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Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.
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There is a great difference, whether the poet seeks the particular for the sake of the general or sees the general in the particular. From the former procedure there ensues allegory, in which the particular serves only as illustration, as example of the general. The latter procedure, however, is genuinely the nature of poetry; it expresses something particular, without thinking of the general or pointing to it.
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As soon as you are in a social setting, you better take away the key to the lock of your heart and pocket it; those who leave thekey in the lock are fools.
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That we understand something perfectly, that we accomplish something better than anyone else around us, that is what matters.
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It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.
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Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.
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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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Pity on the person who has become accustomed to seeing in necessity something arbitrary, who ascribes to the arbitrary some sort of reason, and even claims that following that sort of reason has religious value.
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Generosity wins favour for everyone, especially when it is accompanied by modesty.