Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Higher aims are in themselves more valuable, even if unfulfilled, than lower ones quite attained.
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Two souls dwell, alas! in my breast.
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Only the soul that loves is happy.
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The highest happiness of man ... is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.
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Human life runs its course in the metamorphosis between receiving and giving.
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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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Mediocrity has no greater consolation than in the thought that genius is not immortal.
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Nature has neither core nor skin: she’s both at once outside and in.
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We blame equally him who is too proud to put a proper value on his own merit and him who prizes too highly his spurious worth.
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Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.
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Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect, that every one should study, by all methods, to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things. ...For this reason, one ought every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
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To be loved for what one is, that is the greatest exception. The great majority love in others only what they lend him; their own selves, their version of him.
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For that is love's nature that it lays claim to exclusive right and that all other claims are nil.
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Napoleon affords us an example of the danger of elevating one's self to the absolute, and sacrificing everything to the carrying out of an idea.
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Just trust yourself and you'll learn the art of living.
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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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People of uncommon abilities generally fall into eccentricities when their sphere of life is not adequate to their abilities.
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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.
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Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are.
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Mere curiosity adds wings to every step.
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There is but one poetry-true poetry.
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A vain man can never be altogether rude. Desirous as he is of pleasing, he fashions his manners after those of others.
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The man of understanding finds everything laughable.
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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.