Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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It is natural to man to regard himself as the final cause of creation.
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A life without love, without the presence of the beloved, is nothing but a mere magic-lantern show. We draw out slide after slide, swiftly tiring of each, and pushing it back to make haste for the next.
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The Woman-Soul leadeth us upward and on!
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Yet he who grasps the moment's gift, He is the proper man.
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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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Everything that we call Invention or Discovery in the higher sense of the word is the serious exercise and activity of an original feeling for truth, which, after a long course of silent cultivation, suddenly flashes out into fruitful knowledge.
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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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Don't judge anyone harshly until you yourself have been through his experiences.
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Hatred is a heavy burden. It sinks the heart deep in the breast, and lies like a tombstone on all joys.
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He is dead in this world who has no belief in another.
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People should talk less and draw more. Personally, I would like to renounce speech altogether and, like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say visually.
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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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If you call a thing bad you do little, if you call a thing good you do much.
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Love, whose power youth feels, is not suitable for the elderly, just as little as anything that presupposes productivity. It is rare that productivity lasts through the years.
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In art, the best is good enough.
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For what one has in black and white, One can carry home in comfort.
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Every solution of a problem is a new problem.
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In politics as on a sickbed men toss from side to side in hope of lying more comfortably.
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The rich want good wine, the poor, plenty of wine.
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So long as you live and work, you will be misunderstood; to that you must resign yourself once and for all. Be silent!
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It is the color closest to light. In its utmost purity it always implies the nature of brightness and has a cheerful, serene, gently stimulating character. Hence, experience teaches us that yellow makes a thoroughly warm and comforting impression.
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All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, until they take root in our personal experience.
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We don't get to know anything but what we love.
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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.