Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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The Primal Plant is going be the strangest creature in the world, which Nature herself must envy me. With this model and the key to it, it will be possible to go on for ever inventing plants and know that their existence is logical; that is to say, if they do not actually exist, they could, for they are not the shadowy phantoms of a vain imagination, but possess an inner necessity and truth. The same law will be applicable to all other living organisms.
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Nature is beneficent. I praise her and all her works. She is silent and wise. She is cunning, but for good ends. She has brought me here and will also lead me away. She may scold me, but she will not hate her work. I trust her.
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Most men, even the most accomplished, are of limited faculties; every one sets a value on certain qualities in himself and others: these alone he is willing to favour, these alone will he have cultivated.
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If it is the greatest truth that you seek, the plants can direct you.
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What is the freedom of the most free? To do what is right!
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Only law can give us freedom.
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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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Not art and science only, but patience will be required for the work.
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Character is constructed amidst the tempests of the World.
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Giving is the business of the rich.
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To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.
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Thou tremblest before anticipated ills, and still bemoanest what thou never losest.
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The greatest evil that can befall man is that he should come to think ill of himself.
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What we do not understand we do not possess.
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What must the English and French think of the language of our philosophers when we Germans do not understand it ourselves?
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Beautiful is greater than Good, for it includes the Good.
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All men would be masters of others, and no man is lord of himself.
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The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.
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It is so hard that one cannot really have confidence in doctors and yet cannot do without them.
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Mysteries are not necessarily miracles.