Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Love Quotations

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.

I love those who yearn for the impossible.

If I love you, what business is it of yours?

To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods.

He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.

Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds.

We can't form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.

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

We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.

Girls we love for what they are; young men for what they promise to be.

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

First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.

There are nine requisites for contented living: HEALTH enough to make work a pleasure; WEALTH enough to support your needs; STRENGTH enough to battle with difficulties and forsake them; GRACE enough to confess your sins and overcome them; PATIENCE enough to toil until some good is accomplished; CHARITY enough to see some good in your neighbor; LOVE enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others; FAITH enough to make real the things of God; HOPE enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.

Girls we love for what they are; men for what they promise to be.

To be loved for what one is, is the greatest exception. The great majority love in others only what they lend him, their own selves, their version of him.

Ambition and love are the wings to great deeds.

If I love you, what does that matter to you!

The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth.

The first and last thing required of genius is, love of the truth.

We don't get to know anything but what we love.

Any trifle is enough to entertain two lovers.

Against great advantages in another, there are no means of defending ourselves except love.

Love has the tendency of pressing together all the lights - all the rays emitted from the beloved object by the burning-glass of fantasy, - into one focus, and making of them one radiant sun without any spots.

A life without love, without the presence of the beloved, is nothing but a mere magic-lantern show. We draw out slide after slide, swiftly tiring of each, and pushing it back to make haste for the next.

Self-love exaggerates our faults as well as our virtues.

The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.

To be loved for what one is, that is the greatest exception. The great majority love in others only what they lend him; their own selves, their version of him.

The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.

Love can do much, but duty more.

[Nature's] crown is Love. Only through Love can we come near her. She puts gulfs between all things, and all things strive to be interfused. She isolates everything, that she may draw everything together. With a few draughts from the cup of Love she repays for a life full of trouble.

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

A king there was once reigning, Who had a goodly flea, Him loved he without feigning, As his own son were he!

Why should we not recognize in the lightning, the thunder, and the storm wind, the approach of an overwhelming Power, and in the scent of flowers and the gently rustling zephyr the presence of a Being full of love?

You don't love if you don't take the beloved's faults for virtues.

Hatred is partial, but love is still more so.

There is no way to face the great advantages of another person than through love.

For that is love's nature that it lays claim to exclusive right and that all other claims are nil.

Voluntary dependence is the wonderful form of existence, and how could that be possible without love?

Love, whose power youth feels, is not suitable for the elderly, just as little as anything that presupposes productivity. It is rare that productivity lasts through the years.

Love grants in a moment What toil can hardly achieve in an age. [Ger., In einem Augenblick gewahrt die Liebe Was Muhe kaum in langer Zeit erreicht.]

Where confidence is wanting, the most beautiful flower in the garland of love is missing.

Of the book of books most wondrous is the tender book of love.

The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through all eternity.

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing

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.

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.

A useless life is an early death.

Love does not dominate; it cultivates.

Whenever I hear people talking about liberal ideas, I am always astounded that men should love to fool themselves with empty sounds. An idea should never be liberal; it must be vigorous, positive, and without loose ends so that it may fulfill its divine mission and be productive.

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love

Nine requisites for contented living: Health enough to make work a pleasure. Wealth enough to support your needs. Strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them. Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them. Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished. Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor. Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others. Faith enough to make real the things of God. Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.

Choose well. Your choice is brief, and yet endless.