Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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And we went our separate ways without having understood each other. As in this world nobody understands the other easily.
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It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.
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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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One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.
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Neither a work of nature nor one of art we get to know when they have been finished; we must surprise them in the process of beingcreated so as to understand them to some degree.
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The most fortunate of men, Be he a king or commoner, is he Whose welfare is assured in his own home.
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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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Unlimited activity, of whatever kind, must end in bankruptcy.
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Love of truth shows itself in this, that a man knows how to find and value the good in everything.
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The trouble is small, the fun is great.
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Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill.
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We are our own aptest deceiver.
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What makes poetry? A full heart, brimful of one noble passion.
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There is but one poetry-true poetry.
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Whoever aspiring, struggles on, for him there is salvation.
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He who cannot love must learn to flatter.
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He who is plenteously provided for from within needs but little from without.
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Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.
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Only the soul that loves is happy.
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Very few people love others for what they are; rather, they love what they lend them, their own selves, their own idea of them.
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If ever the Divine appeared on earth, it was in the person of Christ.
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The church alone beyond all question Has for ill-gotten goods the right digestion.
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What I possess I would gladly retain. Change amuses the mind, yet scarcely profits.
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We love a girl for very different qualities than understanding. We love her for her beauty, her youth, her mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults, caprices and God knows what other inexpressible charms; but we do not love her understanding.