Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Shakespeare is dangerous to young poets; they cannot but reproduce him, while they fancy that they produce themselves.
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Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.
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The style of writing required in the great world is distinguished by a free and daring grace, a careless security, a fine and sharp polish, a delicate and perfect taste; while that fitted for the people is characterized by a vigorous natural fulness, a profound depth of feeling, and an engaging naivete.
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If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.
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The trouble is small, the fun is great.
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I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wants.
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To have a positive religion is not necessary. To be in harmony with yourself and the universe is what counts, and this is possible without positive and specific formulation in words.
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When you lose interest in anything, you also lose the memory for it.
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What is part of you, you cannot get rid of, even if you were to throw it away.
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I wish the crowd to feel itself well treated, Especially since it lives and lets me live.
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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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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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Men are much more apt to agree in what they do than in what they think.
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No one feels himself easy in a garden which does not look like the open country.
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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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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.
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Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.
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Generosity wins favour for everyone, especially when it is accompanied by modesty.
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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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Why go further and further, Look, happiness is right here. Learn how to grab hold of luck, For luck is always there.
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Democracy does not race, it reaches the finish slowly but surely.
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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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The question "From where does the poet get it?" addresses only the what, nobody learns anything about the how when asking that question.
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When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.