Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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When the healthy nature of man acts as a whole, when he feels himself to be in the world as in a great, beautiful, noble, and valued whole, when harmonious ease affords him a pure and free delight, then the universe, if it could experience itself, would exult, as having attained its goal, and admire the climax of its own becoming and essence.
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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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The world is full of contradiction.
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Still this planet's soil for noble deeds grants scope abounding.
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He alone deserves liberty and life who daily must win them anew.
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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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Could we perfect human nature, we might also expect a perfect state of things.
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The senses do not deceive us, but the judgment does.
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Most pioneers are at the mercy of doubt at the beginning, whether of their worth, of their theories, or of the whole enigmatic field in which they labour.
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To every one Nature appears in a form of his own. She hides herself in a thousand names and terms, and is always the same.
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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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What makes poetry? A full heart, brimful of one noble passion.
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One is never satisfied with a portrait of persons whom one knows. That is why I have always pitied portraitists. One demands so seldom of others the impossible, but demands just that of the portraitists.
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Create, artist, do not talk.
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Paternity is based anyhow only upon conviction: I am convinced, therefore, I am the father.
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The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.
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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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Where a man has a passion for meditating without the capacity of thinking, a particular idea fixes itself fast, and soon creates a mental disease.
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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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Since I have heard often enough that everyone in the end has his own religion, nothing seemed more natural to me than to fashion my own.
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When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
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The best benefit we derive from history is the enthusiasm it excites.
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The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.
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At bottom, no real object is unpoetical, if the poet knows how to use it properly.