Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes - Page 2

It is ever true that he who does nothing for others, does nothing for himself.

Du hast so viele Leben, wie du Sprachen sprichst. (You have as many lives as the number of languages you speak.)

Each one's no longer consciousOf the high wall, or the rest:Since the one enduring fortress,Is the soldier's iron breast.If you’d live unconquered,Quickly arm, and fight the real foe:Every wife an Amazon bred,And every child a hero.

Talent develops in tranquility, character in the full current of human life.

When he comes to the doorhe always looks mocking and half-way angry.You can see he has sympathy for nothing.It's written on his foreheadthat he can love no one.

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers & cities; but to know someone who thinks & feels with us, & who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.

As usual, I shall tell my story badly; and you, as usual, will think me extravagant.

What matters creative endless toil, When, at a snatch, oblivion ends the coil?

Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.

Do not give in too much to feelings. A overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth.

Truth has to be repeated constantly, because Error also is being preached all the time, and not just by a few, but by the multitude. In the Press and Encyclopaedias, in Schools and Universities, everywhere Error holds sway, feeling happy and comfortable in the knowledge of having Majority on its side.

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.

He'd have improved if you'd not givenHim a mere glimmer of the light in heaven;He calls it Reason, and it has only increasedHis power to be beastlier than a beast.

We really learn only from those books that we cannot judge. The author of a book that we were able to judge would have to learn from us.

15"General ideas and great conceit are always a fair way to bring about terrible misfortune.

...nothing is more dangerous than solitude: there our imagination, always disposed to rise, taking a new flight on the wings of fancy, pictures to us a chain of beings of whom we seem the most inferior. All things appear greater than they really are, and all seem superior to us. This operation of the mind is quite natural: we so continually feel our own imperfections, and fancy we perceive in others the qualities we do not possess, attributing to them also all that we enjoy ourselves, that by this process we form the idea of a perfect, happy man,—a man, however, who only exists in our own imagination.

The world admires wealth and velocity—these are the things for which everyone strives. Railroads, the post, steamboats, and all possible modes of communication are the means by which the world overeducates itself and freezes itself in mediocrity.

If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.

I'm fairly fond of boys, but my preference is for girls; When I have enough of a girl, she serves me still as a boy.

The greatest evil that can befall man is that he should come to think ill of himself.

To end the greatest work designed,A thousand hands need but one mind.

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.

There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they find to laugh at.

schade dass die Natur nur einen Mensch aus dir schuf / denn zum wurdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff" (loose translation: nature, alas, made only one being out of you although there was material for a good man & a rogue)

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.

Naturalists tell of a noble race of horses that instinctively open a vein with their teeth, when heated and exhausted by a long course, in order to breathe more freely. I am often tempted to open a vein, to procure for myself everlasting liberty. Cento volte ho impugnato una lama per conficcarmela nel cuore. Si dice di una nobile razza i cavalli,che quando si sentono accaldati e affaticati, si aprono istintivamente una vena, per respirare più liberamente. Spesso anche io vorrei aprirmi una vena che mi desse libertà eterna.

Being full of mischief, they love to listen;they gladly obey, for they like to betray you,pretending to be sent from Heaven,and lisping like angels, while they lie.

The way you see people is the way you treat them and the way you treat them is what they become.

If you would create something,you must be something.

No one has ever properly understood me, I have never fully understood anyone; and no one understands anyone else

Behaviour is a mirror in which every one displays his own image.

The things I know, every man can know, but, oh, my heart is mine alone!

Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do; and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension.

We often feel that we lack something, and seem to see that very quality in someone else, promptly attributing all our own qualities to him too, and a kind of ideal contentment as well. And so the happy mortal is a model of complete perfection--which we have ourselves created.

nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart.

I possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. I possess so much, but without her I have nothing.

The world turns gray, the air grows cool, the fog blows in. Only at evening can you really value home.

Cease endlessly striving for what you would like to do and learn to love what must be done.

Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in even greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen itself as much as it desires: beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it shines forth in the Gospels, it will not go.

And while throughout the self same motion Repeated on forever flows The thousandfold o er arching ocean Its strong embrace around all throws Streams through all things the joy of living The least star thrilleth fond accord And all their crowding all their striving Is endless rest in God the Lord. - - -GER:Wenn im Unendlichen dasselbeSich wiederholend ewig fließt,Das tausendfältige GewölbeSich kräftig ineinander schließt,Strömt Lebenslust aus allen Dingen,Dem kleinsten wie dem größten SternUnd alles Drängen, alles RingenIst ewige Ruh in Gott dem Herrn.Zahme Xenien VI.

You must, in studying Nature, always consider both each single thing and the whole: nothing is inside and nothing is outside, for what is within is without. Make haste, then, to grasp this holy mystery which is public knowledge.Rejoice in the true illusion, in the serious game: no living thing is a unity, it is always manifold.

But there are times," said Charlotte, "when it is necessary and an act of friendship to write nothing rather than not to write.

If I wasn't a devil myself I'd give Me up to the Devil this very minute.

Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.

In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm. ... In the real world, all rests on perseverance.

What you inherit from your fathermust first be earned before it's yours.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

It is not easy in this world for one person to understand the next one.

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing.

Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.

The Church has an excellent appetite. She has swallowed whole countries and the questionHas never risen of indigestion. Only the Church . . . can take Ill-gotten goods without stomach-ache!

I am not omniscient, but I know a lot.

There is strong shadow where there is much light.

Glib tongues frill up their hash of knowledgefor mankind in polished speechesthat are no more than vaporous windsrustling the fallen leaves in autumn.

When a human awakens to a great dream and throws the full force of his soul over it, all the universe conspires in your favor.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

The limits of my language are the limits of my universe.

Gracious Providence, to whom I owe all my powers, why didst thou not withhold some of those blessings I possess, and substitute in their place a feeling of self-confidence and contentment?

This is the true measure of love: when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will ever love in the same way after us.