Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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Presents at once? That's good. He is sure to succeed.
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Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill.
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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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Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.
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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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Flowers are the beautiful hieroglyphics of nature with which she indicates how much she loves us.
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The most damaging prejudice consists of banning any kind of investigation of nature.
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And we went our separate ways without having understood each other. As in this world nobody understands the other easily.
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What is the universal? The single case. What is the particular? Millions of cases.
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There is not a single outward mark of courtesy that does not have a deep moral basis.
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He who is plenteously provided for from within needs but little from without.
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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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Battle not with monsters, for then you become one.
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Just begin and the mind grows heated; continue, and the task will be completed!
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If in the infinite you want to stride, Just walk in the finite to every side.
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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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If one mistreats citizens of foreign countries, one infringes upon one's duty toward one's own subjects; for thus one exposes themto the law of retribution.
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It would not be worth your while to reach the age of seventy if all the wisdom of the world were to be foolishness before God.
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I will say with Lorenzo de Medici that those who do not hope for another life are always dead to this one.
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Theories are usually the over-hasty efforts of an impatient understanding that would gladly be rid of phenomena, and so puts in their place pictures, notions, nay, often mere words.
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If you want a wise answer, ask a reasonable question.
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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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One doesn't always lose when one has to do without.