Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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It is with art as with love: How can a man of the world,with all his distractions, keep the inwardness which an artist must possess if he hopes to attain perfection? That inwardness which the spectator must share if he is to understand the work as the artist wishes and hopes... Believe me, talents are like virtues; either you must love them for their own sake or renounce them altogether. And they are only recognized and rewarded when we have practised them in secret, like a dangerous mystery."
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The true, prescriptive artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless artist, following blind instinct, after an appearance of naturalness. The one leads to the highest peaks of art, the other to its lowest depths.
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A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for them, and he patiently suffers much for them; but he becomes impatient if he is required to give them up.
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Say what we may of the inadequacy of translation, yet the work is and will always be one of the weightiest and worthiest undertakings in the general concerns of the world.
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The human mind will not be confined to any limits.
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Ill-humor is nothing more than an inward feeling of our own want of merit, a dissatisfaction with ourselves which is always united with an envy that foolish vanity excites.
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Lord Byron is only great as a poet; as soon as he reflects he is a child.
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Let the noble man Be generous and good, Tirelessly achieving What is just and useful: Let him be a model For those beings whom he surmises.
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Much there is I can stand. Most things not easy to sufferI bear with quiet resolve, just as a God commands it.Only a few things I find as repugnant as snakes and poison.These four: tobacco smoke, bedbugs and garlic and Christ.
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Life is too short to drink bad wine.
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Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality.
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Let us live in as small a circle as we will, we are either debtors or creditors before we have had time to look round.
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Why should we not recognize in the lightning, the thunder, and the storm wind, the approach of an overwhelming Power, and in the scent of flowers and the gently rustling zephyr the presence of a Being full of love?
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Neuere Poeten tun viel Wasser in die Tinte.
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We all walk in mysteries. We are surrounded by an atmosphere about which we still know nothing at all.
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'I have found a paper of mine among some others in which I call architecture 'petrified music.' Really there is something in this; the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of music.'
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Every spoken word arouses our self-will.
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Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
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Like the star that shines afar, Without haste and without rest, Let each one wheel with steady sway Round the task that rules the day, And do their best.
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As all Nature's thousands changes But one changeless God proclaim; So in Art's wide kingdom ranges One sole meaning still the same: This is Truth, eternal Reason, Which from Beauty takes its dress, And serene through time and season Stands aye in loveliness.
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One can't dull a project better than by discussing it repeatedly.
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A violet on the meadow grew, That no one saw, that no one knew, It was a modest flower. A shepherdess pass'd by that way. Light footed, pretty and so gay; That way she came, Softly warbling forth her lay.
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One man's word is no man's word; we should quietly hear both sides.
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A thinking man's greatest happiness is to have fathomed what can be fathomed and to revere in silence what cannot be fathomed.