Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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So much has already been said about Shakespeare that there doesn't seem to be anything more to say; yet it is the quality of the spirit that it forever stimulates the spirit.
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If all these devils really exist it proves there must be angels, too.
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Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.
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God could cause us considerable embarrassment by revealing all the secrets of nature to us: we should not know what to do for sheer apathy and boredom.
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Let us live, while we are alive!
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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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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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What government is the best? That which teaches us to govern ourselves. [Ger., Welche Regierung die beste sei? Diejenige die uns lehrt uns selbst zu regieren.]
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As long as you are not aware of the continual law of Die and Be Again, you are merely a vague guest on a dark Earth.
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I am part of the part that once was everything, Part of the darkness which gave birth to light… Mephistopheles, from Faust.
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One that does not think to highly of himself is more than he thinks.
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I was oppressed with the sensations I then felt; I sunk under the weight of them.
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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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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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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.
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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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What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.
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Everywhere, we learn only from those whom we love.
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Everything we do has a result. But that which is right and prudent does not always lead to good, nor the contrary to what is bad.
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Where I cannot be moral, my power is gone.
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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.
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Taste is only to be educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably good but of the truly excellent.
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Miracle is the pet child of faith.
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Don't say that you want to give, but go ahead and give! You'll never catch up with a mere hope.