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When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.
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We cannot and must not get rid of nor deny our characteristics. But we can give them shape and direction.
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There is no permanence in doubt; it incites the mind to closer inquiry and experiment, from which, if rightly managed, certainty proceeds, and in this alone can man find thorough satisfaction.
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In art, the best is good enough.
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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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I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.
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It is natural to man to regard himself as the final cause of creation.
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I hate every violent overthrow, because as much is destroyed as is gained by it.
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To have more, you must first be more.
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Who can think wise or stupid things at all that were not thought already in the past.
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And what does really matter? That is easy: thinking and doing, doing and thinking--and these are the sum of all wisdom. . . . Both must move ever onward in life, to and fro, like breathing in and breathing out.
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People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us; and this goes on to the end. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor.
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The hardest thing is to see what's under your very eyes.
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If you want someone to develop a specific trait, treat them as though they already had it.
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If you call a thing bad you do little, if you call a thing good you do much.
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I am proud of my heart alone, it is the sole source of everything, all our strenght, happiness & misery. All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
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Sound and sufficient reason falls, after all, to the share of but few men, and those few men exert their influence in silence.
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The soul is indestructible and its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set at night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere.
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If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.
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What am I then...? Everything that I have seen, heard, and observed I have collected and exploited. My works have been nourished by countless different individuals, by innocent and wise ones, people of intelligence and dunces. Childhood, maturity and old age all have brought me their thoughts....their perspectives on life. I have often reaped what others have sowed. My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name Goethe.
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The style of writing required in the great world is distinguished by a free and daring grace, a careless security, a fine and sharp polish, a delicate and perfect taste; while that fitted for the people is characterized by a vigorous natural fulness, a profound depth of feeling, and an engaging naivete.
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Die Welt ist eine Glocke, die einen Riß hat: sie klappert, aber klingt nicht.
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There is no patriotic art and no patriotic science.
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Nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart.