Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Whether one show one's self a man of genius in science or compose a song, the only point is, whether the thought, the discovery, the deed, is living and can live on.
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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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We are surrounded by abysses, but the greatest of all depths is in our own heart, and an irresistible leaning leads us there. Draw thyself from thyself!
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While man's desires and aspirations stir he cannot choose but err.
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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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Let there be truth between us.
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Nothing will change the fact that I cannot produce the least thing without absolute solitude.
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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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Power is neither male nor female.
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The miller believes that all the wheat grows so that his mill keeps running.
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To quit smoking, you must first want to quit, but then you must also do the quitting.
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When Nature begins to reveal her open secret to a man, he feels an irresistible longing for her worthiest interpreter, Art.
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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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Miracle is the pet child of faith.
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One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.
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There is no way to face the great advantages of another person than through love.
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The flowers are full of honey, but only the bee finds out the sweetness.
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Everything we do has a result. But that which is right and prudent does not always lead to good, nor the contrary to what is bad.
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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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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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All that is alive tends toward color, individuality, specificity, effectiveness and opacity. All that is done with life inclines toward knowledge, abstraction, generality transfiguration and transparency.
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A resolution that is communicated is no longer within thy power; thy attentions become now the plaything of chance; he who would have his commands certainly carried out must take man by surprise.
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The world remains ever the same.
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The destiny of any nation at any given time depends on the opinion of its young people, those under twenty-five.