Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Hypotheses are lullabies for teachers to sing their students to sleep.
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I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.
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A plant is like a self-willed man, out of whom we can obtain all which we desire, if we will only treat him his own way.
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My worthy friend, gray are all theories And green alone Life's golden tree.
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There is strong shadow where there is much light.
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Mere curiosity adds wings to every step.
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God made man simple, but how he changed and got complicated is hard to say.
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Reality surpasses imagination; and we see, breathing, brightening, and moving before our eyes sights dearer to our hearts than any we ever beheld in the land of sleep.
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I have always paid attention to the merits of my enemies, and found it an advantage.
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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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We rather confess our moral errors, faults, and crimes than our ignorance.
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Yet he who grasps the moment's gift, He is the proper man.
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The little man is still a man.
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Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.
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I hate all bungling as I do sin, but particularly bungling in politics, which leads to the misery and ruin of many thousands and millions of people.
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A life without love, without the presence of the beloved, is nothing but a mere magic-lantern show. We draw out slide after slide, swiftly tiring of each, and pushing it back to make haste for the next.
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We should know mankind better if we were not so anxious to resemble one another.
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Ye great teachers: listen to what you say!
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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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To know where a thing is we must have found it.
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When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.
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Very few people love others for what they are; rather, they love what they lend them, their own selves, their own idea of them.
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He is the happiest man who can see the connection between the end and the beginning of life.
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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.