Goethe Quotes

To accept good advice is but to increase one's own ability.

We can really respect a man only if he doesn't always look out for himself.

Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different.

Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine

It is not enough to take steps which may someday lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.

Few men have imagination enough for reality.

Our foibles are really what make us lovable.

Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.

To rule is easy, to govern difficult.

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.

To understand one thing well is better than understanding many things by halves.

Patriotism ruins history.

The rich want good wine, the poor, plenty of wine

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

A great scholar is seldom a great philosopher.

The mark of highest originality lies in the ability to develop a familiar idea so fruitfully that it would seem no one else would ever have discovered so much to be hidden in it.

Tolerance should, strictly speaking, be only a passing mood; it ought to lead to acknowledgment and appreciation. To tolerate a person is to affront him.

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.

Human life runs its course in the metamorphosis between receiving and giving.

One errs as long as one strives.

Love of truth shows itself in this, that a man knows how to find and value the good in everything.

The most original of authors are not so because they advance what is new, but more because they know how to say something, as if it had never been said before.

I had rather be Mercury, the smallest among seven [planets], revolving round the sun, than the first among five [moons] revolving round Saturn.

Plunge boldly into the thick of life!

People have a peculiar pleasure in making converts, that is, in causing others to enjoy what they enjoy, thus finding their own likeness represented and reflected back to them.

Higher aims are in themselves more valuable, even if unfulfilled, than lower ones quite attained.

Fresh activity is the only means of overcoming adversity.

A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.

You must either conquer and rule or serve and lose, suffer or triumph, be the anvil or the hammer.

The connoisseur of art must be able to appreciate what is simply beautiful, but the common run of people is satisfied with ornament.

Willing is not enough, we must do.

In art, the best is good enough.

All beginnings are delightful; the threshold is the place to pause.

God help us -- for art is long, and life so short.

As man is, so is his God. And thus is God oft strangely odd.

Every second is of infinite value.

Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.

Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.

Wisdom is only found in truth. [Ger., Die Weisheit ist nur in der Wahrheit.]

But when all is said, the greatest art is to limit and isolate oneself.

How can we know ourselves? Never by reflection, but only through action. Begin at once to do your duty and immediately you will know what is inside you.

There is no surer method of evading the world than by following Art, and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by Art.

Culture which smooth the whole world licks, Also unto the devil sticks.

The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim.

Enjoy what you can, endure what you must.

The threshold is the place of expectation.

One never goes so far as when one doesn't know where one is going.

Common sense is the genius of humanity.