Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Energy will do anything that can be done in this world.
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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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People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us; and this goes on to the end. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor.
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All theory, my friend, is grey, But green is life's glad golden tree.
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Mastery is often taken for egotism.
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Talent develops in quiet, alone; character is sharpened in the torrent of the world.
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We are not all equal, nor can we be so.
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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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Humans fear reason, but they ought to fear stupidity- for reason can be hard, but stupidity can be fatal.
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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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Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.
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The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.
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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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By seeking and blundering we learn.
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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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Our destiny often looks like a fruit-tree in winter. Who would think from its pitiable aspect that those rigid boughs, those rough twigs could next spring again be green, bloom, and even bear fruit? Yet we hope it, we know it.
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The older we grow, the greater become the ordeals.
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Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.
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I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
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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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Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.
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True works of art are a manifestation of the higher laws of nature.
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I have possessed that heart, that noble soul, in whose presence I seemed to be more than I really was, because I was all that I could be.
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Of the book of books most wondrous is the tender book of love.