Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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The assault of our enemies is not part of our life; it is only part of our experience; we throw it off and guard ourselves against it as against frost, storm, rain, hail, or any other of the external evils which may be expected to happen.
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How can we learn self-knowledge? Never by taking thought but rather by action. Try to do your duty and you'll soon discover what you're like.
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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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The history of mankind is his character.
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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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Great possessions and great want of them are both strong temptations.
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Oblivion is full of people who allow the opinions of others to overrule their belief in themselves.
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If a man knows where to get good advice, it is as though he could supply it himself.
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Presents at once? That's good. He is sure to succeed.
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We lay aside letters never to read them again, and at last we destroy them out discretion, and so disappears the most immediate breath of life, irrecoverably for ourselves and for others.
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The greater the knowledge, the greater the doubt.
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If in the infinite you want to stride, Just walk in the finite to every side.
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There is no better deliverance from the world than through art, and a man can form no surer bond with it.
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Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.
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The misery that oppresses you lies not in your profession but in yourself! What man in the world would not find his situation intolerable if he chooses a craft, an art, indeed any form of life, without experiencing an inner calling? Whoever is born with a talent, or to a talent, must surely find in that the most pleasing of occupations! Everything on this earth has its difficult sides! Only some inner drive - pleasure, love - can help us overcome obstacles, prepare a path, and lift as out of the narrow circle in which others tread out their anguished, miserable existences!
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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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Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.
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The highest happiness, the purest joys of life, wear out at last.
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No two people see the world exactly alike, and different temperaments will often apply the same principle, recognized by both, differently. Even one and the same person won't always maintain the same views and judgments: earlier convictions must give way to later ones.
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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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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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Mediocrity has no greater consolation than in the thought that genius is not immortal.
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Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.
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After fifteen minutes nobody looks at a rainbow.