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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We always hope, and in all things it is better to hope than to despair.
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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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The flowers are full of honey, but only the bee finds out the sweetness.
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He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.
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Power is neither male nor female.
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Most pioneers are at the mercy of doubt at the beginning, whether of their worth, of their theories, or of the whole enigmatic field in which they labour.
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What is hardest of all? That which seems most simple: to see with your eyes what is before your eyes.
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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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To like things like, whatever one may ail; There is certain help.
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The hardest thing is to see what's under your very eyes.
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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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Don't judge anyone harshly until you yourself have been through his experiences.
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The Woman-Soul leadeth us upward and on!
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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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A man who cannot command himself will always be a slave.
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I will listen to anyone's convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself.
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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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Every solution of a problem is a new problem.
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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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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.
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Children, like dogs, have so sharp and fine a scent that they detect and hunt out everything--the bad before all the rest. They also know well enough how this or that friend stands with their parents; and as they practice no dissimulation whatever, they serve as excellent barometers by which to observe the degree of favor or disfavor at which we stand with their parents.
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If one has not read the newspapers for some months and then reads them all together, one sees, as one never saw before, how much time is wasted with this kind of literature.