Authors — Quotes

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes: 49

Character develops itself in the stream of life.
The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.
Personality is everything in art and poetry.
It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.
There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.
What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.
In art the best is good enough.
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.
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
Faust: First Part
If I love you, what business is it of yours?
If you've never eaten while crying you don t know what life tastes like.
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.
Collected Works
Love can do much, but duty more.
Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd run away.
By seeking and blundering we learn.
Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.
I have so much in me, and the feeling for her absorbs it all; I have so much, and without her it all comes to nothing.
The Sorrows of Young Werther
The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.
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.
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
Instruction does much, but encouragement everything."(Letter to A.F. Oeser, Nov. 9, 1768)
Early and Miscellaneous Letters of J. W. Goethe: Including Letters to His Mother. With Notes and a Short Biography
I love those who yearn for the impossible.
Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds.
The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.
Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.
Nothing is worth more than this day.
The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.
Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.
Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.
Maxims and Reflections
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.
At the moment of commitment the entire universe conspires to assist you.
All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, until they take root in our personal experience.
If you would create something,you must be something.
Difficulties increase the nearer we get to the goal.
Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it!
He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.
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.
To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods.
I am not omniscient, but I know a lot.
Faust: First Part
Wild dreams torment me as I lie. And though a god lives in my heart, though all my power waken at his word, though he can move my every inmost part - yet nothing in the outer world is stirred. thus by existence tortured and oppressed I crave for death, I long for rest.
Faust, Part One
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.
A dim vastness is spread before our souls; the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision... But alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant 'there' becomes the present 'here,' all is changed; we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness.
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Es ist nicht genug, zu wissen, man muß auch anwenden; es ist nicht genug, zu wollen, man muß auch tun.
The way you see people is the way you treat them and the way you treat them is what they become.
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.
What matters creative endless toil, When, at a snatch, oblivion ends the coil?
Faust: Der Tragödie erster und zweiter Teil. Urfaust
Love does not dominate; it cultivates.
Ohne Hast, aber ohne Rast. - Without haste, but without rest.