Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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Unrest and uncertainty are our lot.
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What makes people happy is activity; changing evil itself into good by power, working in a God like manner.
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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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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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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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There is nothing more fearful than imagination without taste. [Ger., Es ist nichts furchterlicher als Einbildungskraft ohne Geschmack.]
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One never learns to understand truly anything but what one loves.
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Solitude is fine when you are at peace with yourself and have something definite to do.
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The older we grow, the greater become the ordeals.
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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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The best benefit we derive from history is the enthusiasm it excites.
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Flowers are the beautiful hieroglyphics of nature with which she indicates how much she loves us.
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What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.
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The rose is wont with pride to swell, and ever seeks to rise.
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The world is full of contradiction.
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At the end of life thoughts hitherto impossible come to the collected mind, like good spirits which let themselves down from the shining heights of the past.
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People have a peculiar pleasure in making converts, that is, in causing others to enjoy what they enjoy, thus finding their own likeness represented and reflected back to them.
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When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
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Treat people the way they are and they will stay that way. Treat people the way they can become and they will become that way.
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The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.
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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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Oh God, how do the world and heavens confine themselves, when our hearts tremble in their own barriers!
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War is in truth a disease in which the juices that serve health and maintenance are used for the sole purpose of nourishing something foreign, something at odds with nature.