Goethe Quotes

Correction does much, but encouragement does more. Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.

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

The threshold is the place of expectation.

Enjoy what you can, endure what you must.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Every man has enough power left to carry out that of which he is convinced.

As in Rome there is, apart from the Romans, a population of statues, so apart from this real world there is a world of illusion, almost more potent, in which most men live.

It matters little whether a man be mathematically or philologically or artistically cultivated, so he be but cultivated.

The mind is found most acute and most uneasy in the morning. Uneasiness is, indeed, a species of sagacity - a passive sagacity. Fools are never uneasy.

If your treat an individual... as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.

By nature we have no defect that could not become a strength, no strength that could not become a defect.

Nature does not suffer her veil to be taken from her, and what she does not choose to reveal to the spirit, thou wilt not wrest from her by levers and screws.

There are but few who have ideas and are, at the same time, capable of action. Ideas enlarge but stymie, action enlivens but confines.

Care is taken that trees do not grow into the sky.

Boldness has power, magic and genius in it.

Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.

We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.

Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.

Hypotheses are only the pieces of scaffolding which are erected round a building during the course of construction, and which are taken away as soon as the edifice is completed.

Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.

Of all peoples the Greeks have dreamt the dream of life best.

It is not enough to have knowledge; one must apply it. It is not enough to have wishes; one must also accomplish it.

I treat my heart like a sick child and gratify its every fancy

A man is not little when he finds it difficult to cope with circumstances, but when circumstances overmaster him.

Treat people the way they are and they will stay that way. Treat people the way they can become and they will become that way.

I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wants.

Kindness is the golden thread that holds society together.

The artist who is not also a craftsman is no good; but, alas, most of our artists are nothing else.

I hate all explanations; they who make them deceive either themselves or the other party,-generally both.

Is not the core of nature in the heart of man?

Everywhere, we learn only from those whom we love.

Divide and command, a wise maxim; Unite and guide, a better.

We see only what we know.

It is in human nature to relax, when not compelled by personal advantage or disadvantage.

When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.

Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.

The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.

Collectors are happy people.

The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are of subordinate importance, is the conflict of skepticism with faith.

A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world's torrent.

Wishes are premonitions of abilities.

The eternal feminine draws us on high.

Truth is a torch, but a terrific one; therefore we all try to reach it with closed eyes, lest we should be scorched.

All men would be masters of others, and no man is lord of himself.

A wife is a gift bestowed upon a man to reconcile him to the loss of paradise.