Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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Fortunately, we can take in only so much misfortune; what exceeds that limit either destroys us or leaves us indifferent.
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No limit, no definition, may restrict the range or depth of the human spirit's passage into its own secrets or the world's.
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Whoever aspiring, struggles on, for him there is salvation.
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He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line.
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Two souls dwell, alas! in my breast.
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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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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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There is but one poetry-true poetry.
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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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Limitation of aims is the mother of wisdom and the secret of achievement.
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Daily life is more instructive than the most effective book.
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Higher aims are in themselves more valuable, even if unfulfilled, than lower ones quite attained.
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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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A wife is a gift bestowed upon a man to reconcile him to the loss of paradise.
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No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.
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The most damaging prejudice consists of banning any kind of investigation of nature.
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What is the universal? The single case. What is the particular? Millions of cases.
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We can most safely achieve truly universal tolerance when we respect that which is characteristic in the individual and in nations, clinging, though, to the conviction that the truly meritorious is unique by belonging to all of mankind.
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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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Were the eye not of the sun, How could we behold the light? If God's might and ours were not as one, How could His work enchant our sight?
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When toward the Devil's Hose we tread, Woman's a thousand steps behind.
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Battle not with monsters, for then you become one.
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Still this planet's soil for noble deeds grants scope abounding.