Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Art is constitutive-the artist determines beauty. He does not take it over.
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All of us have life; few of us have an idea of it.
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The world is so great and rich, and life so full of variety, that you can never lack occasions for poems.
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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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It is natural to man to regard himself as the final cause of creation.
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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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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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Whenever I hear people talking about liberal ideas, I am always astounded that men should love to fool themselves with empty sounds. An idea should never be liberal; it must be vigorous, positive, and without loose ends so that it may fulfill its divine mission and be productive.
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Man's highest merit always is, as much as possible, to rule external circumstances and as little as possible to let himself be ruled by them.
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To make converts is the natural ambition of everyone.
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There are people who make no mistakes because they never wish to do anything worth doing.
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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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Austere perseverance, hash and continuous... rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistible greater with time.
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No one can take from us the joy of the first becoming aware of something, the so-called discovery. But if we also demand the honor, it can be utterly spoiled for us, for we are usually not the first. What does discovery mean, and who can say that he has discovered this or that? After all it's pure idiocy to brag about priority; for it's simply unconscious conceit, not to admit frankly that one is a plagiarist.
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I have always paid attention to the merits of my enemies, and found it an advantage.
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Nature is, after all, the only book that offers important content on every page.
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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.
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No one should be rich except those who understand it.
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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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When the healthy nature of man acts as a whole, when he feels himself to be in the world as in a great, beautiful, noble, and valued whole, when harmonious ease affords him a pure and free delight, then the universe, if it could experience itself, would exult, as having attained its goal, and admire the climax of its own becoming and essence.
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I hate all bungling as I do sin, but particularly bungling in politics, which leads to the misery and ruin of many thousands and millions of people.
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The assault of our enemies is not part of our life; it is only part of our experience; we throw it off and guard ourselves against it as against frost, storm, rain, hail, or any other of the external evils which may be expected to happen.
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Just as, out of habit, one consults a run-down clock as though it were still going, so too one may look at the face of a beautiful woman as though he still loved her.
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The happiest man is the one who finds happiness at home.