Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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The true poet is called to take in the splendor of the world and for that reason will always be inclined to praise rather than tofind fault.
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Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.
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Enthusiasm is of the greatest value, so long as we are not carried away by it.
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Every decided colour does a certain violence to the eye, and forces the organ to opposition.
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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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Commonplaceness, the surrender to the average, that good which is not bad but still the enemy of the best - That is our besetting danger.
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Science arose from poetry... when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.
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Everywhere, we learn only from those whom we love.
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I have always paid attention to the merits of my enemies, and found it an advantage.
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Where I cannot be moral, my power is gone.
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It is sometimes essential for a husband and a wife to quarrel - they get to know each other better.
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After all, poets shouldn't be their own interpreters and shouldn't carefully dissect their poems into everyday prose; that would mean the end of being poets. Poets send their creations into the world, it is up to the reader, the aesthetician, and the critic to determine what they wanted to say with their creations.
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A human being needs only a small plot of ground on which to be happy, and even less to lie beneath.
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To make converts is the natural ambition of everyone.
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There are but few who have ideas and are, at the same time, capable of action. Ideas enlarge but stymie, action enlivens but confines.
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The loss of a much-prized treasure is only half felt when we have not regarded its tenure as secure.
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What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.
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No two people see the world exactly alike, and different temperaments will often apply the same principle, recognized by both, differently. Even one and the same person won't always maintain the same views and judgments: earlier convictions must give way to later ones.
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Do the duty which lies nearest to thee.
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Artists have a double relationship towards nature: they are her master and her slave at the same time. They are her slave in so far as they must work with means of this world so as to be understood; her master in so far as they subject these means to their higher goals and make them subservient to them.
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By seeking and blundering we learn.
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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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Thus one can observe that those who proclaim piety as their goal and purpose usually turn into hypocrites.
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The spirit from which we act is the principal matter.