Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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Science has been seriously retarded by the study of what is not worth knowing and of what is not knowable.
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Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill.
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It makes no good to point the failures out without showing at the same time the remedy to address them.
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Superstition is the poetry of life. It is inherent in man's nature; and when we think it is wholly eradicated, it takes refuge in the strangest holes and corners, whence it peeps out all at once, as soon as it can do it with safety.
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Cursed Mammon be, when he with treasures To restless action spurs our fate! Cursed when for soft, indulgent leisures, He lays for us the pillows straight.
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It is better to be deceived by one's friends than to deceive them.
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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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The mortal race is far too weak not to grow dizzy on unwonted brights.
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What is part of you, you cannot get rid of, even if you were to throw it away.
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The history of mankind is his character.
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Analysis and synthesis are both as necessary to the thinking spirit as inspiration and expiration to the organism.
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Daily life is more instructive than the most effective book.
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We love a girl for very different qualities than understanding. We love her for her beauty, her youth, her mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults, caprices and God knows what other inexpressible charms; but we do not love her understanding.
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The follies of the wise man are known to himself, but hidden from the world.
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Hypotheses are the scaffolds which are erected in front of a building and removedd when the building is completed. They are indispensable to the worker; but the worker must not mistake the scaffolding for the building.
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There is but one poetry-true poetry.
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As great, everlasting, Adamantine laws Dictate, we must all Complete the cycles Of our existence.
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As soon as you are in a social setting, you better take away the key to the lock of your heart and pocket it; those who leave thekey in the lock are fools.
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Let no one be like another, yet everyone like the highest. How is this done? Be each one perfect in himself.
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There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on how one looks at it.
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To be sure, a good work of art can and will have moral consequences, but to demand of the artists moral intentions, means ruiningtheir craft.
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The soul-stirring image of death is no bugbear to the sage, and is looked on without despair by the pious. It teaches the former to live, and it strengthens the hopes of the latter in salvation in the midst of distress. Death is new life to both.
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There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.