Goethe Quotes

Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night, nearer yet and nearer rising to the light - light, serene and holy where my soul may rest, purified and lowly, sanctified and blest.

The history of a man is in his character.

Light has called forth one organ to become its like, and thus the eye is formed by the light and for the light so that the inner light may emerge to meet the outer light.

Beauty and Genius must be kept afar if one would avoid becoming their slave.

Noble be man, Helpful and good! For that alone Sets him apart From every other creature On earth.

He loves not who does not see the faults of the beloved as virtues.

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

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it; and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.

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

Waste not a day in vain digression; with resolute, courageous trust seek every possible impression and make it firmly your posession you'll then work on because you must.

How often do I lull my seething blood to rest, for you have never seen anything so unsteady, so uncertain, as this heart.

Once more I am a wanderer, a pilgrim, through the world. But what else are you?

If there is confusion in your head and in your heart, what more do you want! A man who no longer loves and no longer errs should have himself buried straight away.

Tolerance should really only be a passing attitude: it should lead to appreciation. To tolerate is to offend.

Love grants in a moment what toil can hardly acheive in an age.

‎It has ever been my fate to give pain to those whose happiness I should have promoted.

I bid the chords sweet music make, And all must follow in my wake.

When I say to the Moment flying; 'Linger a while -- thou art so fair!' Then bind me in thy bonds undying, And my final ruin I will bear!

Women are silver dishes into which we put golden apples.

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

As beauteous is the world, and many a joy Floats through its wide dominion. But, alas, When we would seize the winged good, it flies.

All understanding begins in wonder!

How can one learn to know oneself? Never by introspection, rather by action.

As our inclinations, so our opinions.

Most man only care for science so far as they get a living by it, and that they worship even error when it affords them a subsistence.

Colour itself is a degree of darkness.

Commonplaceness, the surrender to the average, that good which is not bad but still the enemy of the best - That is our besetting danger.

Alas, I have studied philosophy, the law as well as medicine, and to my sorrow, theology; studied them well with ardent zeal, yet here I am, a wretched fool, no wiser than I was before.

There is nothing more frightful than for a teacher to know only what his scholars are intended to know.

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

Do thine own task, and be therewith content.

Every great idea exerts, on first appearing, a tyrannical influence: Hence, the advantages it brings are turned all too soon into disadvantages.

So dear night the half of life is, And the fairest half indeed.

Let your trouble be Light will follow dark Though the heaven falls You may hear the lark.

Like the star that shines afar, Without haste and without rest, Let each one wheel with steady sway Round the task that rules the day, And do their best.

He who possesses science and art, Possesses religion as well; He who possesses neither of these, Had better have religion.

From desire I plunge to its fulfilment, where I long once more for desire.

He who serves the public is a poor animal; he worries himself to death and no one thanks him for it.

I am the Spirit that denies.

Life is but a preparation for what there is to come.

When Nature begins to reveal her open secret to a man, he feels an irresistible longing for her worthiest interpreter, Art.

Beauty can never really understand itself.

If you lay duties upon people and give them no rights, you must pay them well.

Every idea appears at first as a strange visitor, and when it begins to be realized, it is hardly distinguishable from fantasy.

Certain faults are necessary to the individual if he is to exist.

If a man sets out to study all the laws, he will have no time left to transgress them.

A man must cling to the belief that the incomprehensible is comprehensible; otherwise he would not try to fathom it.

There is no greater consolation for mediocrity than that the genius is not immortal.

To every one [Nature] appears in a form of his own. She hides herself in a thousand names and terms, and is always the same.