Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Talent develops in quiet, alone; character is sharpened in the torrent of the world.
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Doubt grows with knowledge.
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Hypotheses are lullabies for teachers to sing their students to sleep.
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One should not wish anyone disagreeable conditions of life; but for him who is involved in them by chance, they are touchstones of characters and of the most decisive value to man.
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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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Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.
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Willing is not enough, we must do.
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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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We lay aside letters never to read them again, and at last we destroy them out discretion, and so disappears the most immediate breath of life, irrecoverably for ourselves and for others.
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There is no patriotic art.
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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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There is nothing more fearful than imagination without taste. [Ger., Es ist nichts furchterlicher als Einbildungskraft ohne Geschmack.]
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Hatred is a heavy burden. It sinks the heart deep in the breast, and lies like a tombstone on all joys.
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So dear night the half of life is, And the fairest half indeed.
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He who can not learn to love must flatter.
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Of all thieves, fools are the worst; they rob you of time and temper.
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It is in the half fools and the half wise that the greatest danger lies.
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To live within limits. To want one thing. Or a few things very much and love them dearly. Cling to them, survey them from every angle. Become one with them - that is what makes the poet, the artist, the human being.
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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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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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At bottom, no real object is unpoetical, if the poet knows how to use it properly.
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It would not be worth your while to reach the age of seventy if all the wisdom of the world were to be foolishness before God.
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Every bird has its decoy, and every man is led and misled in his own peculiar way.
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On all the peaks lies peace.