Johann Wolfgang von Goethe T Quotations

We need a constitution, we need rules, but we don't need a wall,

Human beings, by change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.

What you have inherited from your forefathers, it takes work to make it your own.

One is never satisfied with the portrait of a person that one knows.

Modern poets add a lot of water to their ink.

Life is but a preparation for what there is to come.

Those who have no hope for a future life are already dead for the present one.

The threshold is the place of expectation.

To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome.

True works of art are a manifestation of the higher laws of nature.

Art will always be art.

A genuine work of art usually displeases at first sight, as it suggests a deficiency in the spectator.

Beauty is at once the ultimate principle and the highest aim of art.

Continue to make the demands of the day your immediate concern, and take occasion to test the purity of your hearts and the steadfastness of your spirits. When you then take a deep breath and rise above the cares of this world and in an hour of leisure, you will surely win the proper frame of mind to face devoutly what is above us, with reverence, seeing in all events the manifestation of a higher guidance.

We can redeem anyone who strives unceasingly.

With little wit and ease to suit them, They whirl in narrow circling trails, Like kittens playing with their tails.

Water its living strength first shows, When obstacles its course oppose.

A vi'let 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.

The universal subjugator, the commonplace.

Divide and command, a wise maxim; Unite and guide, a better.

Care is taken that trees do not grow into the sky.

Great possessions and great want of them are both strong temptations.

Every bird has its decoy, and every man is led and misled in his own peculiar way.

Thou shalt abstain, Renounce, refrain.

We are surrounded by abysses, but the greatest of all depths is in our own heart, and an irresistible leaning leads us there. Draw thyself from thyself!

I am the Spirit that denies.

Whoever gives himself up to solitude, Ah! he is soon alone.

A resolution that is communicated is no longer within thy power; thy attentions become now the plaything of chance; he who would have his commands certainly carried out must take man by surprise.

For a strolling damsel a doubtful reputation bears.

I consider him of no account who esteems himself just as the popular breath may chance to raise him.

Lord Byron is only great as a poet; as soon as he reflects he is a child.

I hate every violent overthrow, because as much is destroyed as is gained by it.

When two men quarrel, who owns the cooler head is the more to blame.

I wish the crowd to feel itself well treated, Especially since it lives and lets me live.

He who serves the public is a poor animal; he worries himself to death and no one thanks him for it.

He who does not stretch himself according to the coverlet finds his feet uncovered.

Neither art thou the man to catch the fiend and hold him! [Ger., Du bist noch nicht der Mann den Teufel festzuhalten.

What dazzles, for the moment spends its spirit; Whats genuine, shall posterity inherit.

For what one has in black and white, One can carry home in comfort.

Yet through delivery orators succeed, I feel that I am far behind indeed.

With little art, clear wit and sense Suggest their own delivery.

To make a young couple love each other, it is only necessary to oppose and separate them.

Yet he who grasps the moment's gift, He is the proper man.

A noble soul alone can noble souls attract; And knows alone, as ye, to hold them.

The iron hand of necessity commands, and her stern decree is supreme law, to which the gods even must submit. In deep silence rules the uncounselled sister of eternal fate. Whatever she lays upon thee, endure; perform whatever she commands.

Necessity is cruel, but it is the only test of inward strength. Every fool may live according to his own likings.

Great necessity elevates man, petty necessity casts him down

The mob has nothing to lose, everything to gain.

If I say to the moment: 'Stay now! You are so beautiful'!

I have heard myself accused of being an opponent, an enemy of mathematics, which no one can value more highly than I, for it accomplishes the very thing whose achievement has been denied me.

Cursed Mammon be, when he with treasures To restless action spurs our fate! Cursed when for soft, indulgent leisures, He lays for us the pillows straight.

Judge a man's character by what he finds ridiculous.

No sacred fane requires us to submit to insult.

Be always resolute with the present hour. Every moment is of infinite value.

To a valet no man is a hero.

Every man bears something within him that, if it were publicly announced, would excite feelings of aversion.

All understanding begins in wonder!

Thought expands, but paralyzes; action animates, but narrows.

And step by step, along the path of life, There's nothing true but Heaven.

Smoothly and lightly the golden seed by the furrow is covered.

A plant is like a self-willed man, out of whom we can obtain all which we desire, if we will only treat him his own way.

Good children's literature appeals not only to the child in the adult, but to the adult in the child.

You don't have to travel around the world to understand that the sky is blue everywhere

To act is easy; to think is hard.

It is the great triumph of genius to make the common appear novel.

These auspicious aspects, which the astrologers subsequently interpreted for me, may have been the causes of my preservation.

As for solitude, I cannot understand how certain people seek to lay claim to intellectual stature, nobility of soul and strength of character, yet have not the slightest feeling for seclusion; for solitude, I maintain, when joined with a quiet contemplation of nature, a serene and conscious faith in creation and the Creator, and a few vexations from outside is the only school for a mind of lofty endowment.

There are but two roads that lead to an important goal and to the doing of great things: strength and perseverance. Strength is the lot of but a few privileged men; but austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistibly greater with time.

In the end we retain from our studies only that which we practically apply.

Seize this very minute. What you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Begin it and the work will be completed

The ideal of beauty is simplicity and tranquility.

Art is constitutive-the artist determines beauty. He does not take it over.

Accepting good advice means nothing other than to strengthen one's own ability.

Three things are to be looked to in a building: that it stand on the right spot; that it is securely founded; that it be successfully executed.

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.- Henry Ward Beecher - I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.

It is said, that no one is a hero to their butler. The reason is, that it requires a hero to recognize a hero. The butler, however, will probably know well how to estimate his equals.

In the end we are all separate: our stories, no matter how similar, come to a fork and diverge. We are drawn to each other because of our similarities, but it is our differences we must learn to respect.

Children, love one another, and if that is not possible-at least try to put up with one another.

To make converts is the natural ambition of everyone.

Gray are all the theories, But green is the tree of life.

Wisdom is only found in truth.

All ages have said and repeated that one should strive to know one's self. This is a strange demand which no one up to now has measured up to and, strictly considered, no one should. With all their study and effort, people are directed to what is outside, to the world about them, and they are kept busy coming to know this and to master it to the extent that their purposes require. . . . How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to. And what is your duty? Whatever the day calls for.

The close and thoughtful observer more and more learns to recognize his limitations. He realizes that with the steady growth of knowledge more and more new problems keep on emerging.

Money lost, something lost. Honor lost, much lost. Courage lost, everything lost-better you were never born

However often we turn to it [the Koran] at first disgusting us each time afresh, it soon attracts, astounds, and in the end enforces our reverence. . . . Its style, in accordance with its contents and aim is stern, grand, terrible - ever and anon truly sublime - Thus this book will go on exercising through all ages a most potent influence.

Whoever strikes at marriage either by word or act undermines the foundation of all moral society.

When the healthy nature of man acts as a whole, when he feels himself to be in the world as in a great, beautiful, noble, and valued whole, when harmonious ease affords him a pure and free delight, then the universe, if it could experience itself, would exult, as having attained its goal, and admire the climax of its own becoming and essence.

Tomorrow sees undone, what happens not to-day; Still forward press, nor never tire! The possible, with steadfast trust, Resolve should be by the forelock grasp. Then she will ne'er let go her clasp, And labors on, because she must.

We lay aside letters never to read them again, and at last we destroy them out discretion, and so disappears the most immediate breath of life, irrecoverably for ourselves and for others.

And what does really matter? That is easy: thinking and doing, doing and thinking--and these are the sum of all wisdom. . . . Both must move ever onward in life, to and fro, like breathing in and breathing out.

It is quite beyond me how anyone can believe God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveal to us our relationship to it, if our hearts fail to tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we shall assuredly not learn it from books, which are at best designed but to give names to our errors.

Die Mathematiker sind eine Art Franzosen. Spricht man zu ihnen, so übersetzen sie alles in ihre eigene Sprache, und so wird es alsobald etwas ganz anderes. Mathematicians are a kind of Frenchmen. Whenever you say anything or talk to them, they translate it into their own language, and right away it is something completely different.

I never believed in trying to do anything. Whatever I set out to do I found I had already accomplished.

There is nothing by which men display their character so much as in what they consider ridiculous... Fools and sensible men are equally innocuous. It is in the half fools and the half wise that the great danger lies.

For the nature of women is closely allied to art

Man would not be the finest creature in the world if he were not too fine for it.

I make presents to the mother but think of the daughter.

Our mistakes and failures are always the first to strike us, and outweigh in our imagination what we have accomplished and attained.

The artist may be well advised to keep his work to himself till it is completed, because no one can readily help him or advise him with it.. but the scientist is wiser not to withhold a single finding or a single conjecture from publicity.

The history of science is science itself; the history of the individual, the individual.