Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Nothing is more disgusting than the majority: because it consists of a few powerful predecessors, of rogues who adapt themselves, of weak who assimilate themselves, and the masses who imitate without knowing at all what they want.
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From inaccessible mountain range by way of desert untrod by human foot to the ends of the unknown seas, the breath of the everlasting creative spirit is felt, rejoicing over every speck of dust that hearkens to it and lives.
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Nature is so perfect that the Trinity couldn't have fashioned her any more perfect. She is an organ on which our Lord plays and the devil works the bellows.
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One is never satisfied with a portrait of persons whom one knows. That is why I have always pitied portraitists. One demands so seldom of others the impossible, but demands just that of the portraitists.
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Beauty can never really understand itself.
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The true poet is called to take in the splendor of the world and for that reason will always be inclined to praise rather than tofind fault.
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Who is sure of their own motives can in confidence advance or retreat.
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Since I have heard often enough that everyone in the end has his own religion, nothing seemed more natural to me than to fashion my own.
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He who possesses science and art, Possesses religion as well; He who possesses neither of these, Had better have religion.
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The hero draws inspiration from the virtue of his ancestors.
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Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him.
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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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The dignity of art probably appears most eminently with music since it does not have any material that needs to be discounted. Music is all form and content and elevates and ennobles everything that it expresses.
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One never learns to understand truly anything but what one loves.
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Secrecy has many advantages, for when you tell someone the purpose of any object right away, they often think there is nothing to it.
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Perfection is the measure of heaven, and the wish to be perfect the measure of man.
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Certain books seem to be written, not that we might learn from them, but in order that we might see how much the author knows.
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The safest thing is always to try to convert everything that is in us and around us into action; let the others talk and argue about it as they please.
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Impotent hatred is the most horrible of all emotions; one should hate nobody whom one cannot destroy.
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To tremble before anticipated evils is to bemoan what thou hast never lost.
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When I make a mistake everyone can see it, but not when I lie.
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He alone deserves liberty and life who daily must win them anew.
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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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If you have science and art, You also have religion; But if you don't have them, You better have religion.