Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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All our knowledge is symbolic.
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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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A noble soul alone can noble souls attract; And knows alone, as ye, to hold them.
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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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Every man has enough power left to carry out that of which he is convinced.
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Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.
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What people call the spirit of the times is mostly their own spirit in which the times mirror themselves.
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There is no greater consolation for mediocrity than that the genius is not immortal.
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In art it's not the thinking that does the job, but making.
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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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As soon as any one belongs to a narrow creed in science, every unprejudiced and true perception is gone.
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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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The words you've bandied are sufficient; 'Tis deeds that I prefer to see.
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To appear at church every Sunday; to look down upon, and let himself be looked at for an hour by the congregation, is the best means of becoming popular which can be recommended to a young sovereign.
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The desire to explain what is simple by what is complex, what is easy by what is difficult, is a calamity.
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If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.
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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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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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A phenomenon like Mozart remains an inexplicable thing.
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No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.
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It is ever true that he who does nothing for others, does nothing for himself.
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Two souls dwell, alas! in my breast.
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Battle not with monsters, for then you become one.
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The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.