Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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Your messages I hear, but faith has not been given; The dearest child of Faith is Miracle.
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After all, poets shouldn't be their own interpreters and shouldn't carefully dissect their poems into everyday prose; that would mean the end of being poets. Poets send their creations into the world, it is up to the reader, the aesthetician, and the critic to determine what they wanted to say with their creations.
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Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect, that every one should study, by all methods, to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things. ...For this reason, one ought every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
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I am proud of my heart alone, it is the sole source of everything, all our strenght, happiness & misery. All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
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Is it life, I ask, is it even prudence, To bore thyself and bore the students?
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Whoever makes it a rule to test action by thought, thought by action, cannot falter, and if he does, will soon find his way back to the right road.
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Mastery is often taken for egotism.
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The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.
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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.
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To know where a thing is we must have found it.
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All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
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Nothing tells more about the character of a man than the things he makes fun of.
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The people rate strength before everything.
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If only these treasures were not so fragile as they are precious and beautiful.
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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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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.
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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.
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Some books seem to have been written, not to teach us anything, but to let us know that the author has known something.
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We are not all equal, nor can we be so.
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Names are but noise and smoke, Obscuring heavenly light.
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Tolerance comes of age. I see no fault committed that I myself could not have committed at some time or other.
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People who think honestly and deeply have a hostile attitude towards the public.
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Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again.