Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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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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God help us -- for art is long, and life so short.
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Man is a simple being, and however rich, varied, and unfathomable he may be, the cycle of his situations is soon run through.
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On top of the world, or in the depths of despair.
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It is said that no man is a hero to his valet. That is because a hero can be recognized only by a hero.
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A vain man can never be altogether rude. Desirous as he is of pleasing, he fashions his manners after those of others.
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One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.
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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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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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The assault of our enemies is not part of our life; it is only part of our experience; we throw it off and guard ourselves against it as against frost, storm, rain, hail, or any other of the external evils which may be expected to happen.
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No one feels himself easy in a garden which does not look like the open country.
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Such is the frailty of man that even where he makes the truest and most forcible impression in the memory, in the heart of his beloved, there also he must perish.
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I believe in God and in nature and in the triumph of good over evil.
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If you have a great work in your head, nothing else thrives near it; all other thoughts are repelled, and the pleasure of life itself is for the time lost.
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If you have science and art, You also have religion; But if you don't have them, You better have religion.
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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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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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If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet.
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Could we perfect human nature, we might also expect a perfect state of things.
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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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Democracy does not race, it reaches the finish slowly but surely.
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The day is of infinite length for him who knows how to appreciate and use it.
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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.