Goethe Quotes

The best benefit we derive from history is the enthusiasm it excites.

The one who acts is always without conscience; nobody has a conscience but the contemplative person.

One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is the intermixing of different genres.

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

At the end of life thoughts hitherto impossible come to the collected mind, like good spirits which let themselves down from the shining heights of the past.

Talent is nurtured in solitude; character is formed in the stormy billows of the world. [Ger., Es bildet ein talent sich in der Stille, Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt.]

It is better to do the smallest thing in the world than to hold half an hour to be too small a thing.

Accepting good advice means nothing other than to strengthen one's own ability.

One does not get to know that one exists until one rediscovers oneself in others.

Man errs as long as he strives.

Help me to discover Thy truth, O Lord, and preserve me from those who have already found it

My poor head is in such a whirl, my mind is all in bits.

On every mountain height is rest.

The phrases that men hear or repeat continually, end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence.

The best genius is that which absorbs and assimilates everything without doing the least violence to its fundamental destiny.

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

The highest problem of any art is to cause by appearance the illusion of a higher reality.

First let a man teach himself, and then he will be taught by others.

The greatest piece of folly is that every man thinks himself compelled to hand down what people think they have known.

It has been said that figures rule the world. Maybe. But I am sure that figures show us whether it is being ruled well or badly.

Our mistakes and failures are always the first to strike us, and outweigh in our imagination what we have accomplished and attained.

Man would not be the finest creature in the world if he were not too fine for it.

I never believed in trying to do anything. Whatever I set out to do I found I had already accomplished.

These auspicious aspects, which the astrologers subsequently interpreted for me, may have been the causes of my preservation.

Never let a day pass without looking at some perfect work of art, hearing some great piece of music and reading, in part, some great book.

Noble be man, helpful and good!

Every decided colour does a certain violence to the eye, and forces the organ to opposition.

Could we perfect human nature, we might also expect a perfect state of things.

It is natural to man to regard himself as the final cause of creation.

A noble man is led by woman's gentle words.

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.

The spirit from which we act is the principal matter.

Nothing is good for a nation but that which arises from its own core and its own general wants, without apish imitation of another.

At bottom, no real object is unpoetical, if the poet knows how to use it properly.

If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet.

Poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere, and at all times, in hundreds and hundreds of men.

What is the freedom of the most free? To do what is right!

As soon as any one belongs to a narrow creed in science, every unprejudiced and true perception is gone.

Who strives always to the utmost, him can we save.

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

One says a lot in vain, refusing; The other mainly hears the "No."

The Evil One has left, the evil ones remain.

Presents at once? That's good. He is sure to succeed.

How happy he who can still hope to lift himself from this sea of error! What we know not, that we are anxious to possess, and cannot use what we know.

What sort of faults may we retain, nay, even cherish in ourselves? Those faults which are rather pleasant than offensive to others.

To a valet no man is a hero. [Ger., Es gibt fur den Kammerdiener keiner Helden.]

I have observed that as long as one lives and bestirs himself, he can always find food and raiment, though it may not be of the choicest description.

When toward the Devil's Hose we tread, Woman's a thousand steps behind. [Ger., Denn geht es zu des Bosen Haus Das Weib hat tausend Schritt voraus.]

Man usually believes, if only words he hears, That also with them goes material for thinking. [Ger., Gewohnlich glaubt der Mensch, wenn er nur Worte hort, Es musse sich dabei doch auch was denken.]

The rabble also vent their rage in words. [Ger., Es macht das Volk sich auch mit Worten Lust.]