Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.
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The words you've bandied are sufficient; 'Tis deeds that I prefer to see.
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After fifteen minutes nobody looks at a rainbow.
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Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.
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A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.
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Talent develops in quiet, alone; character is sharpened in the torrent of the world.
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The safest thing is always to try to convert everything that is in us and around us into action; let the others talk and argue about it as they please.
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The highest happiness, the purest joys of life, wear out at last.
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Secrecy has many advantages, for when you tell someone the purpose of any object right away, they often think there is nothing to it.
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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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And I have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair, that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence.
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That we understand something perfectly, that we accomplish something better than anyone else around us, that is what matters.
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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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Napoleon affords us an example of the danger of elevating one's self to the absolute, and sacrificing everything to the carrying out of an idea.
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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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Still this planet's soil for noble deeds grants scope abounding.
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To live within limits. To want one thing. Or a few things very much and love them dearly. Cling to them, survey them from every angle. Become one with them - that is what makes the poet, the artist, the human being.
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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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Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.
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It is better to be deceived by one's friends than to deceive them.
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Girls we love for what they are; young men for what they promise to be.
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Life is but a preparation for what there is to come.
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The world is full of contradiction.
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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!