Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Die Welt ist eine Glocke, die einen Riß hat: sie klappert, aber klingt nicht.
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If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.
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True happiness springs from moderation.
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There are but few who have ideas and are, at the same time, capable of action. Ideas enlarge but stymie, action enlivens but confines.
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Tolerance should really be only a temporary attitude; it must lead to recognition. To tolerate means to offend.
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The follies of the wise man are known to himself, but hidden from the world.
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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.
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But the valid issue is the extent to which man knows how to form and master the material at his command.
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Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again.
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We rather confess our moral errors, faults, and crimes than our ignorance.
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Let us live, while we are alive!
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Battle not with monsters, for then you become one.
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It is better for you to suffer an injustice than for the world to be without law. Therefore, let everyone submit to the law.
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Whatever we may say against collections, which present authors in a disjointed form, they nevertheless bring about many excellent results. We are not always so composed, so full of wisdom, that we are able to take in at once the whole scope of a work according to its merits. Do we not mark in a book passages which seem to have a direct reference to ourselves? Young people especially, who have failed in acquiring a complete cultivation of mind, are roused in a praiseworthy way by brilliant passages.
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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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The important thing is not to know more than all men, but to know more at each moment than any particular man.
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I hate every violent overthrow, because as much is destroyed as is gained by it.
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Pain and pleasure, good and evil, come to us from unexpected sources. It is not there where we have gathered up our brightest hopes, that the dawn of happiness breaks. It is not there where we have glanced our eye with affright, that we find the deadliest gloom. What should this teach us? To bow to the great and only Source of light, and live humbly and with confiding resignation.
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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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Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.
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To live in a great idea means to treat the impossible as though it were possible. It is just the same with a strong character; and when an idea and a character meet, things arise which fill the world with wonder for thousands of years.
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People who think honestly and deeply have a hostile attitude towards the public.
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To know where a thing is we must have found it.
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One doesn't always lose when one has to do without.