Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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As in Rome there is, apart from the Romans, a population of statues, so apart from this real world there is a world of illusion, almost more potent, in which most men live.
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To be loved for what one is, that is the greatest exception. The great majority love in others only what they lend him; their own selves, their version of him.
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Mankind? That is an abstraction. There have always been and always will be only individuals.
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My worthy friend, gray are all theories And green alone Life's golden tree.
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They should be ashamed of themselves, all these sober people!
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By seeking and blundering we learn.
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And I have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair, that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence.
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On all the peaks lies peace.
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It is in the half fools and the half wise that the greatest danger lies.
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If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.
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All professional men are handicapped by not being allowed to ignore things which are useless.
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By nature we have no defect that could not become a strength, no strength that could not become a defect.
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The people rate strength before everything.
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If one mistreats citizens of foreign countries, one infringes upon one's duty toward one's own subjects; for thus one exposes themto the law of retribution.
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In art it's not the thinking that does the job, but making.
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After fifteen minutes nobody looks at a rainbow.
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It doesn't behoove elderly persons to follow fashion in their thinking nor in the way they dress.
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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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That we understand something perfectly, that we accomplish something better than anyone else around us, that is what matters.
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There speaks the man of truly noble ways, Who will not listen to the words of praise. In modesty averse, and with deaf ears, He acts as though the others were his peers.
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When you take a man as he is, you make him worse. When you take a man as he can be, you make him better.
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Life is the childhood of our immortality.
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What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.
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We are not all equal, nor can we be so.