Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity.
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The present moment is a powerful goddess.
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I don't know a greater advantage, than to appreciate the worth of an enemy.
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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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If in the infinite you want to stride, Just walk in the finite to every side.
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The solution of every problem is another problem.
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Wine rejoices the heart of man and joy is the mother of all virtues.
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Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.
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So dear night the half of life is, And the fairest half indeed.
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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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What is the true test of character unless it be its progressive development in the bustle and turmoil, in the action and reaction of daily life.
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Talent develops in quiet, alone; character is sharpened in the torrent of the world.
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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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There is no patriotic art and no patriotic science.
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Ill-humor is nothing more than an inward feeling of our own want of merit, a dissatisfaction with ourselves which is always united with an envy that foolish vanity excites.
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Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.
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The style of writing required in the great world is distinguished by a free and daring grace, a careless security, a fine and sharp polish, a delicate and perfect taste; while that fitted for the people is characterized by a vigorous natural fulness, a profound depth of feeling, and an engaging naivete.
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Every idea appears at first as a strange visitor, and when it begins to be realized, it is hardly distinguishable from fantasy.
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When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
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The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.
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He who can not learn to love must flatter.
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Girls we love for what they are; young men for what they promise to be.
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The arts are the salt of the earth; as salt relates to food, the arts relate to technology.
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Tis Lilith. Who? Adam's first wife is she. Beware the lure within her lovely tresses, The splendid sole adornment of her hair; When she succeeds therewith a youth to snare, Not soon again she frees him from her jesses.