Goethe Quotes

Everyone is deceived in his hopes, cheated in his expectations.

Wherever a man may happen to turn, whatever a man may undertake, he will always end up by returning to that path which nature has marked out for him.

There is nothing in the world more pitiable than an irresolute man, oscillating between two feelings, who would willingly unite the two and who does not perceive that nothing can unite them

The Woman-Soul leadeth us upward and on!

Fools and wise men are equally harmless. It is the half-fools and half-wise that are dangerous.

Whoever makes it a rule to test action by thought, thought by action, cannot falter, and if he does, will soon find his way back to the right road.

Gray is the color of all theory

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

What a day it is when we must envy the men in their graves.

The world of reason is to be regarded as a great and immortal being, who ceaselessly works out what is necessary, and so makes himself lord also over what is accidental.

If you want to understand poetry, You have to go to its origin, If you want to understand the poet, You have to go to the Poet's home.

If you are convinced of a matter, you must take sides or you don't deserve to succeed.

Writing is busy idleness.

We're really up against it, we poor women: A bachelor's a hard thing to convert

And I like those authors best whose scenes describe my own situation in life-- and the friends who are about me whose stories touch me with interest, from resembling my own homely existence.

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.

Man must strive, and striving he must err.

When you take a man as he is, you make him worse. When you take a man as he can be, you make him better.

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

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

If you treat men the way they are you never improve them. If you treat them the way you want them to be, you do.

The Bible grows more beautiful, as we grow in our understanding of it.

There is no patriotic art.

To know of someone here and there whom we accord with, who is living on with us, even in silence - - this makes our earthly ball a peopled garden.

We can stand only a certain amount of unhappiness; anything beyond that annihilates us or passes us by, leaving us apathethetic.

Who can think wise or stupid things at all that were not thought already in the past.

Wisdom is only found in truth.

Of the truly creative no one is ever master; it must be left to go its own way.

Some books seem to have been written, not to teach us anything, but to let us know that the author has known something.

Whoever aspiring, struggles on, for him there is salvation.

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

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

Sound and sufficient reason falls, after all, to the share of but few men, and those few men exert their influence in silence.

True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them.

The eye doesn't see any shapes, it sees only what is differentiated through light and dark or through colors.

It is opposition that makes us productive.

But one must know where one stands, and where the others wish to go.

Idea and experience will never coincide in the center; only through art and action are they united.

What is fruitful alone is true.

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

Thus one can observe that those who proclaim piety as their goal and purpose usually turn into hypocrites.

The philosophers must station themselves in the middle.

The suffering may be moral or physical; and in my opinion it is just as absurd to call a man a coward who destroys himself, as to call a man a coward who dies of a malignant fever.

If it is the greatest truth that you seek, the plants can direct you.

Not art and science only, but patience will be required for the work.

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

The present is a powerful deity. [Ger., Die Gegenwart ist eine machtige Gottin.]

Every form correctly seen is beautiful

Where I cannot be moral, my power is gone.

Names are but noise and smoke, Obscuring heavenly light.