Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Ill-humor is nothing more than an inward feeling of our own want of merit, a dissatisfaction with ourselves which is always united with an envy that foolish vanity excites.
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If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet.
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Don't say that you want to give, but go ahead and give! You'll never catch up with a mere hope.
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What makes poetry? A full heart, brimful of one noble passion.
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The words you've bandied are sufficient; 'Tis deeds that I prefer to see.
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Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.
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If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.
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He who does not see the whole world in his friends, does not deserve that the world should hear of him.
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Music is so elevated that it is beyond the reach of intellect and there flows from it an influence which is all-potent, and which noone can explain.
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Noble be man, helpful and good!
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As man is, so is his God. And thus is God oft strangely odd.
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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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Truth must be repeated again and again, because error is constantly being preached round about.
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And we went our separate ways without having understood each other. As in this world nobody understands the other easily.
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Time is a strange thing. It is a whimsical tyrant, which in every century has a different face for all that one says and does.
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It is said that no man is a hero to his valet. That is because a hero can be recognized only by a hero.
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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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Children can scarcely be fashioned to meet with our likes and our purpose. Just as God did us give them, so must we hold them and love them, nurture and teach them to fullness and leave them to be what they are.
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He is the happiest man who can see the connection between the end and the beginning of life.
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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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It would be a lowly art that allowed itself to be understood all at once.
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Still this planet's soil for noble deeds grants scope abounding.
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For that is love's nature that it lays claim to exclusive right and that all other claims are nil.
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The soul is indestructible and its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set at night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere.