Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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I am the Spirit that denies.
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The effects of good music are not just because it's new; on the contrary music strikes us more the more familiar we are with it.
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We gladly put antiquity above our age but not posterity. Only a father doesn't begrudge his son's talent.
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Properly speaking, such work is never finished; one must declare it so when, according to time and circumstances, one has done one's best.
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It is delivery that makes the orators success.
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Man darf nur alt werden, um milder zu sein; ich sehe keinen Fehler begehen, den ich nicht auch begangen hätte.
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Schön war ich auch, und das war mein Verderben.
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We are forced to participate in the games of life before we can possibly learn how to use the options in the rules governing them.
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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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One is never satisfied with a portrait of a person that one knows.
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Tell me you stones, O speak, you towering palaces!Streets, say a word! Spirit of this place, are you dumb?All things are alive in your sacred wallsEternal Rome, it's only for me all is still.
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Let us seek to fathom those things that are fathomable and reserve those things which are unfathomable for reverence in quietude.
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With little art, clear wit and sense Suggest their own delivery.
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Getting along with women, Knocking around with men, Having more credit than money, Thus one goes through the world.
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For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.
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All lyrical work must, as a whole, be perfectly intelligible, but in some particulars a little unintelligible.
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How to please the public - that's the test, But nowadays I find I'm in a fix; I know they're not accustomed to the best, But they've all read so much they know the tricks. How can we give then something fresh and new That's serious, but entertaining too?
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Hypotheses are only the pieces of scaffolding which are erected round a building during the course of construction, and which are taken away as soon as the edifice is completed.
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Ich bedauere die Menschen, welche von der Vergänglichkeit der Dinge viel Wesens machen und sich in Betrachtung irdischer Nichtigkeit verlieren. Sind wir ja eben deßhalb da, um das Vergängliche unvergänglich zu machen; das kann ja nur dadurch geschehen, wenn man beides zu schätzen weiß.
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The brilliant passes, like the dew at morn; The true endures, for ages yet unborn.
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I treat my heart like a sick child and gratify its every fancy.
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Riches amassed in haste will diminish; but those collected by hand and little by little will multiply.
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Ein unnütz Leben ist ein früher Tod...
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Die Wahrheit widerspricht unserer Natur, der Irrthum nicht, und zwar aus einem sehr einfachen Grunde: die Wahrheit fordert, daß wir uns für beschränkt erkennen follen, der Irrthum schmeichelt uns. wir seien auf ein- oder die andere Weise unbegränzt.