Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
-
The old lose one of the greatest privileges of man, for they are no longer judged by their contemporaries.
-
A man is not little when he finds it difficult to cope with circumstances, but when circumstances overmaster him.
-
Tolerance should really be only a temporary attitude; it must lead to recognition. To tolerate means to offend.
-
Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.
-
The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.
-
Men's prejudices rest upon their character for the time being and cannot be overcome, as being part and parcel of themselves. Neither evidence nor common sense nor reason has the slightest influence upon them.
-
Where I cannot be moral, my power is gone.
-
What is now the foliage moving? Air is still, and hush'd the breeze, Sultriness, this fullness loving, Through the thicket, from the trees. Now the eye at once gleams brightly, See! the infant band with mirth Moves and dances nimbly, lightly, As the morning gave it birth, Flutt'ring two and two o'er earth.
-
Boldness has power, magic and genius in it.
-
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.
-
A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.
-
Don't dissipate your powers; strive to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it will surely repent of every ill-judged outlay.
-
If only these treasures were not so fragile as they are precious and beautiful.
-
You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it never Rises from the soul, and sways The heart of every single hearer, With deepest power, in simple ways. You’ll sit forever, gluing things together, Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps, Blowing on a miserable fire, Made from your heap of dying ash. Let apes and children praise your art, If their admiration’s to your taste, But you’ll never speak from heart to heart, Unless it rises up from your heart’s space.
-
Let there be truth between us.
-
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.
-
Mastery is often taken for egotism.
-
Nature does not suffer her veil to be taken from her, and what she does not choose to reveal to the spirit, thou wilt not wrest from her by levers and screws.
-
Energy is the basis of everything. Every Jew, no matter how insignificant, is engaged in some decisive and immediate pursuit of a goal... It is the most perpetual people of the earth.
-
The most fortunate of men, Be he a king or commoner, is he Whose welfare is assured in his own home.
-
Tolerance comes of age. I see no fault committed that I myself could not have committed at some time or other.
-
If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.
-
Nature is, after all, the only book that offers important content on every page.
-
People who think honestly and deeply have a hostile attitude towards the public.