Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Pity on the person who has become accustomed to seeing in necessity something arbitrary, who ascribes to the arbitrary some sort of reason, and even claims that following that sort of reason has religious value.
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Tolerance should, strictly speaking, be only a passing mood; it ought to lead to acknowledgment and appreciation. To tolerate a person is to affront him.
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If thou wouldst hear what seemly is and fit, inquire of noble woman; they can tell, who in life's common usage hold their place by graceful deed and aptly chosen word.
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Energy will do anything that can be done in this world.
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I believe in God and in nature and in the triumph of good over evil.
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The man of understanding finds everything laughable.
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Those who have no hope for a future life are already dead for the present one.
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It would be a lowly art that allowed itself to be understood all at once.
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There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.
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Old age is never honored among us, but only indulged, as childhood is; and old men lose one of the most precious rights of man,--that of being judged by their peers.
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Truth is a torch but a tremendous one. That is why we hurry past it, shielding our eyes, indeed, in fear of getting burned.
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The worst is that the very hardest thinking will not bring thoughts. They must come like good children of God and cry, "Here we are." You expend effort and energy thinking hard. Then, after you have given up, they come sauntering in with their hands in their pockets. If the effort had not been made to open the door, however, who knows when they could have come.
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Flowers are the beautiful hieroglyphics of nature with which she indicates how much she loves us.
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It will be! the mass is working clearer! Conviction gathers, truer, nearer! The mystery which for Man in Nature lies We dare to test, by knowledge led; And that which she was wont to organize We crystallize, instead.
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As great, everlasting, Adamantine laws Dictate, we must all Complete the cycles Of our existence.
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Marriage is the beginning and pinnacle of civilization.
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He who cannot love must learn to flatter.
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Man's highest merit always is, as much as possible, to rule external circumstances and as little as possible to let himself be ruled by them.
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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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If nature is your teacher, your soul will awaken.
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All is born of water; all is sustained by water.
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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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If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet.
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And we went our separate ways without having understood each other. As in this world nobody understands the other easily.