Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Everything is hard before it is easy.
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Since you know me and my destiny only too well, you probably also know what attracts me to all unfortunate people.
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If it is the greatest truth that you seek, the plants can direct you.
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All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
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Thank God when he oppresses you, and again when he releases you.
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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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Gifts come from above in their own peculiar forms.
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There are people who make no mistakes because they never wish to do anything worth doing.
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To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.
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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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Judge a man's character by what he finds ridiculous.
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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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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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Beautiful is greater than Good, for it includes the Good.
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The world is for thousands a freak show; the images flicker past and vanish; the impressions remain flat and unconnected in the soul. Thus they are easily led by the opinions of others, are content to let their impressions be shuffled and rearranged and evaluated differently.
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One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.
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He who serves the public is a poor animal; he worries himself to death and no one thanks him for it.
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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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Each traveler should know what he has to see, and what properly belongs to him, on a journey.
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Beware of a man of one book.
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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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The destiny of any nation at any given time depends on the opinion of its young people, those under twenty-five.
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The rich want good wine, the poor, plenty of wine.
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To me the external existence of my soul is proved from my idea of activity. If I work incessantly until my death, nature will give me another form of existence when the present can no longer sustain my spirit.