Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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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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That is the way of youth and life in general: that we do not understand the strategy until after the campaign is over.
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The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.
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All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
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The artist has a twofold relation to nature; he is at once her master and her slave.
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It is bad governments, not bad people, who cause revolutions.
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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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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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Mere curiosity adds wings to every step.
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Paternity is based anyhow only upon conviction: I am convinced, therefore, I am the father.
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It is a great error to take oneself for more than one is, or for less than one is worth.
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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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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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War is in truth a disease in which the juices that serve health and maintenance are used for the sole purpose of nourishing something foreign, something at odds with nature.
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It is said, that no one is a hero to their butler. The reason is, that it requires a hero to recognize a hero. The butler, however, will probably know well how to estimate his equals.
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Miracle is the pet child of faith.
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One that does not think to highly of himself is more than he thinks.
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Artists have a double relationship towards nature: they are her master and her slave at the same time. They are her slave in so far as they must work with means of this world so as to be understood; her master in so far as they subject these means to their higher goals and make them subservient to them.
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We don't get to know anything but what we love.
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Man knows himself only insofar as he knows the world, becoming aware of it if only within himself, and of himself self only within it. Each new subject, well observed, opens up within us a new organ of thought.
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An absent friend gives us friendly company when we are well assured of his happiness.
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When two people are really happy about one another one can generally assume they are mistaken.
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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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Nature is so perfect that the Trinity couldn't have fashioned her any more perfect. She is an organ on which our Lord plays and the devil works the bellows.