Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Nature goes her own way, and all that to us seems an exception is really according to order.
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The dignity of art probably appears most eminently with music since it does not have any material that needs to be discounted. Music is all form and content and elevates and ennobles everything that it expresses.
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Noble be man, helpful and good!
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Nature is so perfect that the Trinity couldn't have fashioned her any more perfect. She is an organ on which our Lord plays and the devil works the bellows.
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There is no patriotic art and no patriotic science.
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Every great idea exerts, on first appearing, a tyrannical influence: Hence, the advantages it brings are turned all too soon into disadvantages.
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It is ever true that he who does nothing for others, does nothing for himself.
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You shall abstain, shall abstain. That is the eternal song.
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All our knowledge is symbolic.
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Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.
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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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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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Great possessions and great want of them are both strong temptations.
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The words you've bandied are sufficient; 'Tis deeds that I prefer to see.
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As soon as any one belongs to a narrow creed in science, every unprejudiced and true perception is gone.
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If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.
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The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist.
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There is no greater consolation for mediocrity than that the genius is not immortal.
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To know where a thing is we must have found it.
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If a man knows where to get good advice, it is as though he could supply it himself.
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Higher aims are in themselves more valuable, even if unfulfilled, than lower ones quite attained.
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If we could do away with death, we wouldn't object; to do away with capital punishment will be more difficult. Were that to happen, we would reinstate it from time to time.
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The smallest hair throws its shadow.
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Shakespeare is dangerous to young poets; they cannot but reproduce him, while they fancy that they produce themselves.