Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
-
The important thing in life is to have a great aim, and the determination to attain it.
-
Die Liebe herrscht nicht, aber sie bildet; und das ist mehr!
-
Whoever gives himself up to solitude, Ah! he is soon alone.
-
He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.
-
We are forced to participate in the games of life before we can possibly learn how to use the options in the rules governing them.
-
Colour itself is a degree of darkness.
-
My inheritance how lordly wide and fair; Time is my fair seed-field, to Time I'm heir.
-
Keep not standing fixed and rooted. Briskly venture, briskly roam.
-
However often we turn to it the Qur'an at first disgusting us each time afresh, it soon attracts, astounds, and in the end enforces our reverence... Its style, in accordance with its contents and aim is stern, grand, terrible - ever and anon truly sublime - Thus this book will go on exercising through all ages a most potent influence.
-
The spirit from which we act is the principal matter.
-
Modern poets add a lot of water to their ink.
-
Unter allen Völkerschaften haben die Griechen den Traum des Lebens am schönsten geträumt.
-
Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome. Every beginning is cheerful: the threshold is the place of expectation.
-
Wenn mancher sich nicht verpflichtet fühlte, das Unwahre zu wiederholen, weil er’s einmal gefügt hat, fo wären es ganz andere Leute geworden.
-
Love does not rule; but it trains, and that is more.
-
Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen.
-
One is never satisfied with a portrait of a person that one knows.
-
In limitations he first shows himself the master,And the law can only bring us freedom.
-
It matters little whether a man be mathematically or philologically or artistically cultivated, so he be but cultivated.
-
Hypotheses are scaffoldings erected in front of a building and then dismantled when the building is finished. They are indispensable for the workman; but you mustn't mistake the scaffolding for the building.
-
This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.
-
I have often felt a bitter sorrow at the thought of the German people, which is so estimable in the individual and so wretched in the generality. A comparison of the German people with other peoples arouses a painful feeling, which I try to overcome in every possible way.
-
All Nine often used to come to me, I mean the Muses:But I ignored them: my girl was in my arms.Now I’ve left my sweetheart: and they’ve left me,And I roll my eyes, seeking a knife or rope.But Heaven is full of gods: You came to aid me:Greetings, Boredom, mother of the Muse.
-
We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.