Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes - Page 3

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nothing can be compared to the new life that the discovery of another country provides for a thoughtful person. Although I am still the same I believe to have changed to the bones.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Let this little book be thy friend, if, owing to fortune or through thine own fault, thou canst not find a dearer companion.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Insofar as he makes use of his healthy senses, man himself is the best and most exact scientific instrument possible. The greatest misfortune of modern physics is that its experiments have been set apart from man, as it were, physics refuses to recognize nature in anything not shown by artificial instruments, and even uses this as a measure of its accomplishments.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Insofar as he makes use of his healthy senses, man himself is the best and most exact scientific instrument possible. The greatest misfortune of modern physics is that its experiments have been set apart from man, as it were, physics refuses to recognize nature in anything not shown by artificial instruments, and even uses this as a measure of its accomplishments.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nothing is more highly to be prized than the value of each day
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If the whole world I once could seeOn free soil stand, with the people freeThen to the moment might I say,Linger awhile. . .so fair thou art.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Everything is hard before it is easy
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Instruction does much, but encouragement everyt
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Anything in the world can be endured, except a series of wonderful days.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I am not omniscient, but I know a lot.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A human being needs only a small plot of ground on which to be happy, and even less to lie beneath.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
...nothing is more dangerous than solitude: there our imagination, always disposed to rise, taking a new flight on the wings of fancy, pictures to us a chain of beings of whom we seem the most inferior. All things appear greater than they really are, and all seem superior to us. This operation of the mind is quite natural: we so continually feel our own imperfections, and fancy we perceive in others the qualities we do not possess, attributing to them also all that we enjoy ourselves, that by this process we form the idea of a perfect, happy man,—a man, however, who only exists in our own imagination.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Behaviour is a mirror in which every one displays his own image.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The way you see people is the way you treat them and the way you treat them is what they become.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Ohne Hast, aber ohne Rast. - Without haste, but without rest.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What matters creative endless toil, When, at a snatch, oblivion ends the coil?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd run away.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He who moves not forward, goes backward.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If you would create something,you must be something.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If you've never eaten while crying you don t know what life tastes like.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it neverRises from the soul, and swaysThe heart of every single hearer,With deepest power, in simple ways.You’ll sit forever, gluing things together,Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps,Blowing on a miserable fire,Made from your heap of dying ash.Let apes and children praise your art,If their admiration’s to your taste,But you’ll never speak from heart to heart,Unless it rises up from your heart’s space.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If I love you, what business is it of yours?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe