Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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Everyone believes in his youth that the world really began with him, and that all merely exists for his sake.
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Of all thieves, fools are the worst; they rob you of time and temper.
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One should not wish anyone disagreeable conditions of life; but for him who is involved in them by chance, they are touchstones of characters and of the most decisive value to man.
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Always to distrust is an error, as well as always to trust.
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Mediocrity has no greater consolation than in the thought that genius is not immortal.
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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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Could we perfect human nature, we might also expect a perfect state of things.
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Every bird has its decoy, and every man is led and misled in his own peculiar way.
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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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The words you've bandied are sufficient; 'Tis deeds that I prefer to see.
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Mastery is often taken for egotism.
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No limit, no definition, may restrict the range or depth of the human spirit's passage into its own secrets or the world's.
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Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?
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Everywhere, we learn only from those whom we love.
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Normally, people believe that, if they hear just words, that these words must lead to some thought.
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Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.
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The present is a powerful deity.
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Mankind? That is an abstraction. There have always been and always will be only individuals.
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Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.
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Do not give in too much to feelings. A overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth.
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Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.
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Let no one be ashamed to say yes today if yesterday he said no. Or to say no today if yesterday he said yes. For that is life. Never to have changed-what a pitiable thing of which to boast!
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After fifteen minutes nobody looks at a rainbow.