Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Heart Quotations

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 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!

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.

True observers of nature, although they may think differently, will still agree that everything that is, everything that is observable as a phenomenon, can only exhibit itself in one of two ways. It is either a primal polarity that is able to unify, or it is a primal unity that is able to divide. The operation of nature consists of splitting the united or uniting the divided; this is the eternal movement of systole and diastole of the heartbeat, the inhalation and exhalation of the world in which we live, act, and exist.

The fate of the architect is the strangest of all. How often he expends his whole soul, his whole heart and passion, to produce buildings into which he himself may never enter.

Is not the core of nature in the heart of man?

Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.

Is it not enough that we cannot make one another happy, must we also rob one another of the pleasures that any heart may permit itself now and then? And name me a person who in a bad mood will be decent enough to hide it, to bear it alone, without destroying the joy around him. Is it not rather an inner dissatisfaction with our own unworthiness, a dislike of ourselves that is always associated with envy aggravated by foolish conceit? We see people happy and not made happy by us, and that is unbearable.

Happy is it, indeed, for me that my heart is capable of feeling the same simple and innocent pleasure as the peasant whose table is covered with food of his own rearing, and who not only enjoys his meal, but remembers with delight the happy days and sunny mornings when he planted it, the soft evenings when he watered it, and the pleasure he experienced in watching its daily growth.

I am proud of my heart alone, it is the sole source of everything, all our strenght, happiness & misery. All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own

Only the heart without a stain knows ease.

Hatred is a heavy burden. It sinks the heart deep in the breast, and lies like a tombstone on all joys.

Alas, that we should be so unwilling to listen to the still and holy yearnings of the heart! A god whispers quite softly in our breast, softly yet audibly; telling us what we ought to seek and what to shun.

I do not now begin,--I still adore Her whom I early cherish'd in my breast; Then once again with prudence dispossess'd, And to whose heart I'm driven back once more. The love of Petrarch, that all-glorious love, Was unrequited, and, alas, full sad...

Give me those days with heart in riot, The depths of bliss that touched on pain, The force of hate, and love's disquiet- Ah, give me back my youth again!

The few of understanding, vision rare, Who veiled not from the herd their hearts, but tried, Poor generous fools, to lay their feelings bare, Them have men always burnt and crucified.

If the mass of people hesitate to act, strike with swiftly and with boldness, the brave heart that understands and seizes opportunity can everything.

Every day I observe more and more the folly of judging of others by ourselves; and I have so much trouble with myself, and my own heart is in such constant agitation, that I am well content to let others pursue their own course, if they only allow me the same privilege.

Must it ever be thus-that the source of our happiness must also be the fountain of our misery? The full and ardent sentiment which animated my heart with the love of nature, overwhelming me with a torrent of delight, and which brought all paradise before me, has now become an insupportable torment, a demon which perpetually pursues and harrasses me.

Oh God, how do the world and heavens confine themselves, when our hearts tremble in their own barriers!

As soon as you are in a social setting, you better take away the key to the lock of your heart and pocket it; those who leave thekey in the lock are fools.

Shakespeare is a great psychologist, and whatever can be known of the heart of man may be found in his plays.

What makes poetry? A full heart, brimful of one noble passion.

A wounded heart can with difficulty be cured. [Ger., Doch ein gekranktes Herz erholt sich schwer.]

Only the heart without a stain knows perfect ease. [Ger., Ganz unbefleckt geniesst sich nur das Herz.]

My peace is gone, my heart is heavy. [Ger., Meine Ruh ist hin, Mein Herz ist schwer.]

Wine rejoices the heart of man and joy is the mother of all virtues.

I treat my heart like a sick child and gratify its every fancy

Please send me your last pair of shoes, worn out with dancing as you mentioned in your letter, so that I might have something to press against my heart.

If there is confusion in your head and in your heart, what more do you want! A man who no longer loves and no longer errs should have himself buried straight away.

How often do I lull my seething blood to rest, for you have never seen anything so unsteady, so uncertain, as this heart.

In happy ignorance, I sighed for a world I did not know, where I hoped to find every pleasure and enjoyment which my heart could desire; and now, on my return from that wide world... how many disappointed hopes and unsuccessful plans have I brought back!

I laugh at my heart, and do its will

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

If we examine every stage of our lives, we find that from our first breath to our last we are under the constraint of circumstances. And yet we still possess the greatest of all freedoms, the power of developing our innermost selves in harmony with the moral order of the universe, and so winning peace of heart whatever obstacles we meet.

A word spoken is a terrible thing when it suddenly utters what the heart has long allowed.

There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is exclusively my own.

Great thoughts and a pure heart, that is what we should ask from God.

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

There is a politeness of the heart; this is closely allied to love.

The sickness of the heart is most easily got rid of by complaining and soothing confidence.

We find from experience that yellow excites a warm and agreeable impression.... The eye is gladdened, the heart expanded and cheered, a glow seems at once to breathe toward us.

My peace is gone, my heart is heavy.

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.

Such is the frailty of man that even where he makes the truest and most forcible impression in the memory, in the heart of his beloved, there also he must perish.

I have possessed that heart, that noble soul, in whose presence I seemed to be more than I really was, because I was all that I could be.

Each one sees what he carries in his heart