Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Those that are firm in their will mold the world to themselves.
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He is dead in this world who has no belief in another.
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What is the true test of character unless it be its progressive development in the bustle and turmoil, in the action and reaction of daily life.
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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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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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There is nothing more fearful than imagination without taste. [Ger., Es ist nichts furchterlicher als Einbildungskraft ohne Geschmack.]
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It is a maxim of wise government to treat people not as they should be but as they actually are.
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True love is love that stays constant for ever, whatever it's fortune; whether requited or scored, filled or sent empty away.
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I have often reaped what others have sowed. My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name Goethe.
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What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own.
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The follies of the wise man are known to himself, but hidden from the world.
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At bottom, no real object is unpoetical, if the poet knows how to use it properly.
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We rather confess our moral errors, faults, and crimes than our ignorance.
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So long as you live and work, you will be misunderstood; to that you must resign yourself once and for all. Be silent!
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You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.
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A man is not little when he finds it difficult to cope with circumstances, but when circumstances overmaster him.
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To make converts is the natural ambition of everyone.
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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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Talent develops in quiet, alone; character is sharpened in the torrent of the world.
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Mathematics has the completely false reputation of yielding infallible conclusions. Its infallibility is nothing but identity. Two times two is not four, but it is just two times two, and that is what we call four for short. But four is nothing new at all. And thus it goes on and on in its conclusions, except that in the higher formulas the identity fades out of sight.
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Willing is not enough, we must do.
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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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So dear night the half of life is, And the fairest half indeed.
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Life is but a preparation for what there is to come.