Goethe Quotes

Only air and light and the love of friends! Let no man lose heart who still has these.

When a human awakens to a great dream and throws the full force of his soul over it, all the universe conspires in your favor.

But there are times, " said Charlotte, "when it is necessary and an act of friendship to write nothing rather than not to write.

Everything is just how I imagined it, yet everything is new

We are all pilgrims who seek Italy.

Once we are lost unto ourselves, everything else is lost to us.

By Fortune's adverse buffets overborneTo solitude I fled, to wilds forlorn, And not in utter loneliness to live, Myself at last did to the Devil give!

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.

If I wasn't a devil myself I'd give Me up to the Devil this very minute.

It is not easy in this world for one person to understand the next one.

Moreover I hate everything which merely instructs me without increasing or directly quickening my activity.

Because everyone uses language to talk, everyone thinks they can talk about language.

Du hast so viele Leben, wie du Sprachen sprichst. (You have as many lives as the number of languages you speak.)

A mans manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.

Each one sees what he carries in his heart.

It is ever true that he who does nothing for others, does nothing for himself.

Talent develops in tranquility, character in the full current of human life.

There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they find to laugh at.

Every day one should at least hear one little song, read one good poem, see one fine painting and -- if at all possible -- speak a few sensible words.

Cease endlessly striving for what you would like to do and learn to love what must be done.

Des Menschen Kraft, im Dichter offenbartThe human power is revealed by poetIl potere dell'umanità si rivela nel poeta

The world turns gray, the air grows cool, the fog blows in. Only at evening can you really value home.

Grant me one hour on love’s most sacred shoresTo clasp the bosom that my soul adores, Lie heart to heart and merge my soul with yours.

Legislators and revolutionaries who promise equality and liberty at the same time, are either psychopaths or mountebanks.

Man needs only a small patch of earth for his pleasures, and a smaller one still to rest beneath.

Solitude is precious balm to my heart in these paradistic parts.

The things I know, every man can know, but, oh, my heart is mine alone!

The Church has an excellent appetite. She has swallowed whole countries and the questionHas never risen of indigestion. Only the Church . . . can take Ill-gotten goods without stomach-ache!

In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm. ... In the real world, all rests on perseverance.

Gracious Providence, to whom I owe all my powers, why didst thou not withhold some of those blessings I possess, and substitute in their place a feeling of self-confidence and contentment?

There occurs the beautiful feeling that only humanity together is the true human being, and that the individual can be cheerful and happy only if he has the courage to feel himself in the Whole.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

Whatever liberates our spirit without giving us mastery over ourselves is destructive.

In all things it is better to hope than to despair.

It's in the anomalies that nature reveals its secrets.

I've often heard it said, a preacherMight learn, with a comedian for a teacher.

National hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.

[Alexander von] Humboldt showers us with true treasures.

What you inherit from your fathermust first be earned before it's yours.

When he comes to the doorhe always looks mocking and half-way angry.You can see he has sympathy for nothing.It's written on his foreheadthat he can love no one.

Glib tongues frill up their hash of knowledgefor mankind in polished speechesthat are no more than vaporous windsrustling the fallen leaves in autumn.

Men grieve [Mephistopheles] so with the days of their lamenting, [he] even hate[s] to plague them with [his] torments.

There is no higher or purer pleasure than to sit with closed eyes and hear a naturally expressive voice recite... a play of Shakespeare's.

Thinking is easy, acting difficult, and to put one's thoughts into actions the most difficult thing in the world.

One who has passed the thirtieth yearalready is as good as dead--it would be best to kill you off by then.

Those who have never seen themselves surrounded on all sides by the sea can never possess an idea of the world, and of their relation to it.

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

So lively brisk old fellow don't let age get you down. White hairs or not you can still be a lover.

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him everybody sees them.

I call architecture 'petrified music'.