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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He is a man whom it is impossible to please, because he is never pleased with himself.
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It is natural to man to regard himself as the final cause of creation.
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The miller believes that all the wheat grows so that his mill keeps running.
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Idea and experience will never coincide in the center; only through art and action are they united.
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Wisdom is found only in truth.
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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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Normally, the sciences distance themselves from life and the return to it via a detour.
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Yet he who grasps the moment's gift, He is the proper man.
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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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The most original of authors are not so because they advance what is new, but more because they know how to say something, as if it had never been said before.
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Profoundness, genius, spontaneity, merit, nobility, ingenuity, voice propriety, feeling, discernment, sensibility, good taste, great tone, rightness, courtliness, vivacity, boldness, style, freshness, harmony, perfection, imagination, purity, correctness. The greatest writer of all times. God's most astonishing creation.
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The world remains ever the same.
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We always hope, and in all things it is better to hope than to despair.
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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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Thank God when he oppresses you, and again when he releases you.
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Distance... is like futurity. A dim vastness is spread before our souls; the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision... But alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant 'there' becomes the present 'here,' all is changed; we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness.
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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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Reality surpasses imagination; and we see, breathing, brightening, and moving before our eyes sights dearer to our hearts than any we ever beheld in the land of sleep.
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To have more, you must first be more.
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He is the happiest man who can see the connection between the end and the beginning of life.
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Nothing is worth more than this day. You cannot relive yesterday. Tomorrow is still beyond your reach.
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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.