Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Wenn mancher sich nicht verpflichtet fühlte, das Unwahre zu wiederholen, weil er’s einmal gefügt hat, fo wären es ganz andere Leute geworden.
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Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.
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There is nothing new on earth For a person who lives long and experiences much. In my years of youthful wandering I have seen crystallized people.
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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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It is delivery that makes the orators success.
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He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.
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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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The brilliant passes, like the dew at morn; The true endures, for ages yet unborn.
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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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People do not mind their faults being spread out before them, but they become impatient if called on to give them up.
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With little art, clear wit and sense Suggest their own delivery.
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Man... knows only when he is satisfied and when he suffers, and only his sufferings and his satisfactions instruct him concerning himself, teach him what to seek and what to avoid. For the rest, man is a confused creature; he knows not whence he comes or whither he goes, he knows little of the world, and above all, he knows little of himself.
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A mathematician is only perfect insofar as he is a perfect man, sensitive to the beauty of truth.
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Should I not be proud, when for twenty years I have had to admit to myself that the great Newton and all the mathematicians and noble calculators along with him were involved in a decisive error with respect to the doctrine of color, and that I among millions was the only one who knew what was right in this great subject of nature?
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The one who always strives, That one can be redeemed.
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You will find the most pronounced hatred of other nations on the lowest cultural levels. There is, though, a level where the hatred disappears completely and where one so to speak stands above the nations and where one experiences fortune or misfortune of a neighboring country as if they had happened to one's own.
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Die Botschaft hör ich wohl, allein, mir fehlt der Glaube
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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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Ein unnütz Leben ist ein früher Tod...
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I treat my heart like a sick child and gratify its every fancy.
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A true German can't stand the French, Yet willingly he drinks their wines.
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Man must strive, and striving he must err.
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Ein echter deutscher Mann mag keinen Franzen leiden,Doch ihre Weine trinkt er gern.
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Art is long, life short; judgment difficult, opportunity transient.