Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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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 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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To tremble before anticipated evils is to bemoan what thou hast never lost.
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The loss of a much-prized treasure is only half felt when we have not regarded its tenure as secure.
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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.
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The rose is wont with pride to swell, and ever seeks to rise.
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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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After all, poets shouldn't be their own interpreters and shouldn't carefully dissect their poems into everyday prose; that would mean the end of being poets. Poets send their creations into the world, it is up to the reader, the aesthetician, and the critic to determine what they wanted to say with their creations.
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Method will teach you to win time.
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Personality is everything in art and poetry.
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One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.
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Do thine own task, and be therewith content.
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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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Quite often, as life goes on, when we feel completely secure as we go on our way, we suddenly notice that we are trapped in error, that we have allowed ourselves to be taken in by individuals, by objects, have dreamt up an affinity with them which immediately vanishes before our waking eye; and yet we cannot tear ourselves away, held fast by some power that seems incomprehensible to us. Sometimes, however, we become fully aware and realize that error as well as truth can move and spur us on to action.
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If you have a great work in your head, nothing else thrives near it; all other thoughts are repelled, and the pleasure of life itself is for the time lost.
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Of the book of books most wondrous is the tender book of love.
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True works of art are a manifestation of the higher laws of nature.
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How many years must a man do nothing, before he can at all know what is to be done and how to do it!
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Taste is only to be educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably good but of the truly excellent.
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We rather confess our moral errors, faults, and crimes than our ignorance.
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The trouble is small, the fun is great.
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Yet here I stand poor fool what more, not one wit wiser than before.
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From desire I plunge to its fulfilment, where I long once more for desire.