Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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When toward the Devil's Hose we tread, Woman's a thousand steps behind.
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He who is firm in will molds the world to himself. [Ger., Aber wer fest auf dem Sinne beharrt, der bildet die Welt sich.]
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Unrest and uncertainty are our lot.
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Yes! to this thought I hold with firm persistence; The last result of wisdom stamps it true; He only earns his freedom and existence Who daily conquers them anew.
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If you lay duties upon people and give them no rights, you must pay them well.
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Let's plunge ourselves into the roar of time, the whirl of accident; may pain and pleasure, success and failure, shift as they will -- it's only action that can make a man.
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I believe in God and in nature and in the triumph of good over evil.
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What is the universal? The single case. What is the particular? Millions of cases.
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The Evil One has left, the evil ones remain.
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The soul is indestructible and its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set at night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere.
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Ill-humor is nothing more than an inward feeling of our own want of merit, a dissatisfaction with ourselves which is always united with an envy that foolish vanity excites.
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Tis Lilith. Who? Adam's first wife is she. Beware the lure within her lovely tresses, The splendid sole adornment of her hair; When she succeeds therewith a youth to snare, Not soon again she frees him from her jesses.
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Some of our weaknesses are born in us, others are the result of education; it is a question which of the two gives us most trouble.
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All is born of water; all is sustained by water.
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Ingratitude is always a kind of weakness. I have never known men of ability to be ungrateful.
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Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are.
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Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.
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Theories are usually the over-hasty efforts of an impatient understanding that would gladly be rid of phenomena, and so puts in their place pictures, notions, nay, often mere words.
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What is the true test of character unless it be its progressive development in the bustle and turmoil, in the action and reaction of daily life.
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It is sometimes essential for a husband and a wife to quarrel - they get to know each other better.
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On top of the world, or in the depths of despair.
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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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What do people mean when they talk about unhappiness? It is not so much unhappiness as impatience that from time to time possesses men, and then they choose to call themselves miserable.
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The hero draws inspiration from the virtue of his ancestors.