Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Ss Quotations

The mortal race is far too weak not to grow dizzy on unwonted brights.

Do not, I beg you, look for anything behind phenomena. They are themselves their own lesson.

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.

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.

We are the slaves of objects around us, and appear little or important according as these contract or give us room to expand.

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.

Our passions are true phoenixes; as the old burn out the new straight rise up from the ashes.

On the pinnacle of success man does not stand firm long.

As all Nature's thousands changes But one changeless God proclaim; So in Art's wide kingdom ranges One sole meaning still the same: This is Truth, eternal Reason, Which from Beauty takes its dress, And serene through time and season Stands aye in loveliness.

Everything perfect in its kind has to transcend its own kind, it must become something different and incomparable. In some notes the nightingale is still a bird; then it rises above its class and seems to suggest to every winged creature what singing is truly like.

All professional men are handicapped by not being allowed to ignore things which are useless.

Thank God when he oppresses you, and again when he releases you.

He is a man whom it is impossible to please, because he is never pleased with himself.

Man's restlessness makes him strive.

A wife is a gift bestowed upon a man to reconcile him to the loss of paradise.

Kindness is the golden thread that holds society together.

It is unpleasant to miss even the most trifling thing to which we have been accustomed.

Men are so constituted that every one undertakes what he sees another successful in, whether he has aptitude for it or not.

Out of moderation a pure happiness springs.

Where a man has a passion for meditating without the capacity of thinking, a particular idea fixes itself fast, and soon creates a mental disease.

We eagerly get hold of a law that serves as a weapon to our passions.

When two people are really happy about one another one can generally assume they are mistaken.

What is not fully understood is not possessed.

Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity.

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive.

You must either conquer and rule or serve and lose, suffer or triumph, be the anvil or the hammer.

Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.

The highest happiness of man ... is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.

The most congenial social occasions are those ruled by cheerful deference of each for all.

How can we learn self-knowledge? Never by taking thought but rather by action. Try to do your duty and you'll soon discover what you're like.

One should not wish anyone disagreeable conditions of life; but for him who is involved in them by chance, they are touchstones of characters and of the most decisive value to man.

Everything that frees our spirit without giving us control of ourselves is ruinous.

Begin by instructing yourself, then you will receive instruction from others.

A state of affairs which leads to daily vexation is not the right state.

If a good person does you wrong, act as though you had not noticed it. If we practice and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, soon the wholeworld will be blind and toothless.

They teach in academies far too many things, and far too much that is useless.

Who is the happiest man? He who is alive to the merit of others, and can rejoice in their enjoyment as if it were his own.

To make an epoch in the world, two conditions are manifestly essential-a good head and a great inheritance.

Can a sparrow know how a stork feels?

All poetry is supposed to be instructive but in an unnoticeable manner; it is supposed to make us aware of what it would be valuable to instruct ourselves in; we must deduce the lesson on our own, just as with life.

The highest happiness, the purest joys of life, wear out at last.

Wanted: A dog that neither barks nor bites, eats broken glass and shits diamonds.

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.

The art of living rightly is like all arts; it must be learned and practiced with incessant care.

Classicism is health, romanticisim is sickness.

I am part of the part that once was everything, Part of the darkness which gave birth to light… Mephistopheles, from Faust.

The day is committed to error and floundering; success and achievement are matters of long range.

An angel! Nonsense! Everybody so describes his mistress; and yet I find it impossible to tell you how perfect she is, or why she is so perfect: suffice it to say she has captivated all my senses.

A man's shortcomings are taken from his epoch; his virtues and greatness belong to himself.

All that is alive tends toward color, individuality, specificity, effectiveness and opacity. All that is done with life inclines toward knowledge, abstraction, generality transfiguration and transparency.

But the valid issue is the extent to which man knows how to form and master the material at his command.

The nude is the perfect expression of freedom. Freedom to be.

Writing is busy idleness.

The loss of a much-prized treasure is only half felt when we have not regarded its tenure as secure.

An absent friend gives us friendly company when we are well assured of his happiness.

I must consider more closely this cycle of good and bad days which I find coursing within myself. Passion, attachment, the urge to action, inventiveness, performance, order all alternate and keep their orbit; cheerfulness, vigor, energy, flexibility and fatigue, serenity as well as desire. Nothing disturbs the cycle for I lead a simple life, but I must still find the time and order in which I rotate.

I was oppressed with the sensations I then felt; I sunk under the weight of them.

What a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it!

When scholars study a thing, they strive to kill it first, if it's alive; then they have the parts and the'be lost the whole, for the link that's missing was the living soul.

One should not search for anything behind the phenomena. They themselves are the message.

One can stand anything except a succession of ordinary days

Misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than malice and wickedness.

[W]hat counts is that one perceives excellence and dares to give it expression, which sounds little but is in fact a great deal.

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.

He who enjoys doing and enjoys what he has done is happy.

Even the lowliest, provided he is whole, can be happy, and in his own . way, perfect.

If you miss the first buttonhole, you will not succeed in buttoning up your coat.

Stones are mute teachers; they silence the observer, and the most valuable lesson we learn from them we cannot communicate.

One is never satisfied with a portrait of persons whom one knows. That is why I have always pitied portraitists. One demands so seldom of others the impossible, but demands just that of the portraitists.

Our foibles are really what make us lovable.

Superstition belongs to the essence of mankind and takes refuge, when one thinks one has suppressed it completely, in the strangest nooks and crannies; once it is safely ensconced there, it suddenly reappears.

New inventions can and will be made; however, nothing new can be thought of that concerns moral man. Everything has already been thought and said which at best we can express in different forms and give new expressions to.

One can't dull a project better than by discussing it repeatedly.

The day is for mistake and error, sequence of time for success and carrying out. The one who anticipates is master of the day.

Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.

A correct answer is like an affectionate kiss.

To the world you might be one person, but to one person, you might be the world. Kindness is the golden chain by which our world is bound together.

The happiest man is the one who finds happiness at home.

In all things, to serve from the lowest station upwards is necessary. To restrict yourself to a trade is best. For the narrow mind, whatever he attempts is still a trade; for the higher, an art; and the highest in doing one thing does all, or, to speak less paradoxically, in the one thing which he does rightly he sees the likeness of all that is done rightly.

There are three classes of readers; some enjoy without judgment; others judge without enjoyment; and some there are who judge while they enjoy, and enjoy while they judge. The latter class reproduces the work of art on which it is engaged. Its numbers are very small.

Even though the world as a whole progresses, youth must always start again from the beginning, and as individuals go through the epochs of the world's culture.

Everything in science depends on what one calls an aperçu, on becoming aware of what is at the bottom of the phenomena. Such becoming aware is infinitely fertile.

Association with women is the basis of good manners.

The greatest happiness for the thinking person is to have explored the explorable and to venerate in equanimity that which cannotbe explored.

Woman is mistress of the art of completely imbittering the life of the person on whom she depends.

The mortal race is far too weak not to grow dizzy on unwonted brights. [Ger., Das sterbliche Geschlecht ist viel zu schwach In ungewohnter Hohe nicht zu schwindeln.]

The trouble is small, the fun is great. [Ger., Die Muh'ist klein, der Spass ist gross.]

What have the Germans gained by their boasted freedom of the press, except the liberty of abusing each other as they like?

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

The passions are like those demons with which Afrasahiab sailed down the Orus. Our only safety consists in keeping them asleep. If they we are lost.

Passions are defects or virtues in the highest power.

Great passions are incurable diseases.

Wouldst thou ever roam abroad? See, what is good lies by thy side. Only learn to catch happiness, for happiness is ever by you.

The world cannot do without great men, but great men are very troublesome to the world.

It is impossible that beauty should ever distinctly appreciate itself.

Everything which is properly business we must keep carefully separate from life. Business requires earnestness and method; life must have a freed handling.

Colour itself is a degree of darkness..