Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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If only these treasures were not so fragile as they are precious and beautiful.
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Oblivion is full of people who allow the opinions of others to overrule their belief in themselves.
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A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.
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It is equally a mistake to hold one's self too high, or to rate one's self too cheap.
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Tolerance should really be only a temporary attitude; it must lead to recognition. To tolerate means to offend.
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The flowers are full of honey, but only the bee finds out the sweetness.
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To live in a great idea means to treat the impossible as though it were possible. It is just the same with a strong character; and when an idea and a character meet, things arise which fill the world with wonder for thousands of years.
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The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.
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When an idea is wanting, a word can always be found to take its place.
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To create something you must be something.
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Every offense is avenged on earth.
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At the end of life thoughts hitherto impossible come to the collected mind, like good spirits which let themselves down from the shining heights of the past.
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Oral delivery aims at persuasion and making the listener believe they are converted. Few persons are capable of being convinced the majority allow themselves to be persuaded.
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A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.
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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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Ye great teachers: listen to what you say!
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When two people are really happy about one another one can generally assume they are mistaken.
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The rose is wont with pride to swell, and ever seeks to rise.
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All of us have life; few of us have an idea of it.
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Go to the place where the thing you wish to know is native; your best teacher is there. Where the thing you wish to know is so dominant that you must breathe its very atmosphere, there teaching is moat thorough, and learning is most easy. You acquire a language most readily in the country where it is spoken; you study mineralogy boat among miners; and so with everything else.
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To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods.
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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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All of us, just because we are able to talk, also believe we are able to talk about language.
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The artist has a twofold relation to nature; he is at once her master and her slave.