Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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The older we get the more we must limit ourselves if we wish to be active.
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Don't judge anyone harshly until you yourself have been through his experiences.
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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 said, that no one is a hero to their butler. The reason is, that it requires a hero to recognize a hero. The butler, however, will probably know well how to estimate his equals.
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Art is constitutive-the artist determines beauty. He does not take it over.
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The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.
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The world remains ever the same.
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For what one has in black and white, One can carry home in comfort.
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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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Artists have a double relationship towards nature: they are her master and her slave at the same time. They are her slave in so far as they must work with means of this world so as to be understood; her master in so far as they subject these means to their higher goals and make them subservient to them.
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For the nature of a women is closely allied to art.
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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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If you want someone to develop a specific trait, treat them as though they already had it.
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One that does not think to highly of himself is more than he thinks.
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The rich want good wine, the poor, plenty of wine.
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The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive.
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Difficulties increase the nearer we get to the goal.
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Battle not with monsters, for then you become one.
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One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.
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The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred...unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
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A lot of people do not care about your money until nearly penniless. They also do so with time.
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I will listen to anyone's convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself.
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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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All of us have life; few of us have an idea of it.