Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.
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God could cause us considerable embarrassment by revealing all the secrets of nature to us: we should not know what to do for sheer apathy and boredom.
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Mankind? That is an abstraction. There have always been and always will be only individuals.
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Nothing is more disgusting than the majority: because it consists of a few powerful predecessors, of rogues who adapt themselves, of weak who assimilate themselves, and the masses who imitate without knowing at all what they want.
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People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us; and this goes on to the end. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor.
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Willing is not enough, we must do.
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We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to erase them.
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The smallest hair throws its shadow.
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If nature is your teacher, your soul will awaken.
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All professional men are handicapped by not being allowed to ignore things which are useless.
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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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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 what does really matter? That is easy: thinking and doing, doing and thinking--and these are the sum of all wisdom. . . . Both must move ever onward in life, to and fro, like breathing in and breathing out.
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An absent friend gives us friendly company when we are well assured of his happiness.
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Noble be man, helpful and good!
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When two men quarrel, who owns the cooler head is the more to blame.
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Animals, we have been told, are taught by their organs. Yes, I would add, and so are men, but men have this further advantage that they can also teach their organs in return.
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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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Every day look at a beautiful picture, read a beautiful poem, listen to some beautiful music, and if possible, say some reasonable thing.
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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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There is not a single outward mark of courtesy that does not have a deep moral basis.
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There is no patriotic art and no patriotic science.
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Every man has enough power left to carry out that of which he is convinced.
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He alone deserves liberty and life who daily must win them anew.