Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Quotes

Marriage is the beginning and pinnacle of civilization.

The human mind will not be confined to any limits.

In art, to express the infinite one should suggest infinitely more than is expressed.

There are few who have at once thought and capacity for action. Thought expands, but lames; action animates, but narrows.

Those that are firm in their will mold the world to themselves.

We can offer up much in the large, but to make sacrifices in little things is what we are seldom equal to.

Only the heart without a stain knows ease.

Architecture is frozen music. [Ger., Die Backunst ist eine erstarrte Musik.]

They teach in academies far too many things, and far too much that is useless.

Microscopes and telescopes really confuse our minds.

Habit is a man's sole comfort. We dislike doing without even unpleasant things to which we have become accustomed.

The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.

Let us not dream that reason can ever be popular. Passions, emotions, may be made popular; but reason remains ever the property of an elect few.

Devote each day to the object then in time and every evening will find something done.

The follies of the wise man are known to himself, but hidden from the world.

We must not take the faults of our youth with us into old age, for age brings along its own defects.

Yes! to this thought I hold with firm persistence; The last result of wisdom stamps it true; He only earns his freedom and existence Who daily conquers them anew.

I have found among my papers a sheet . . . in which I call architecture frozen music.

The hero draws inspiration from the virtue of his ancestors.

One alone does not help, but rather he who unites with many at the right moment.

A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.

Even dirt glitters when the sun is shining upon it

The whole history of the Christian Church is a mixture of errors and violence.

Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity.

Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.

He who does not think much of himself is much more esteemed than he imagines.

A great deal may be done by severity, more by love, but most by clear discernment and impartial justice.

What do people mean when they talk about unhappiness? It is not so much unhappiness as impatience that from time to time possesses men, and then they choose to call themselves miserable.

After fifteen minutes nobody looks at a rainbow.

Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes what we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt.

Men are much more apt to agree in what they do than in what they think.

Art is based on a strong sentiment of religion,--on a profound and mighty earnestness; hence it is so prone to co-operate with religion.

Ambition and love are the wings of great actions.

It would be a lowly art that allowed itself to be understood all at once.

Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.

Who longs in solitude to live, Ah! soon his wish will gain: Men hope and love, men get and give, and leave him to his pain.

If you wish a wise answer, you must put a rational question.

Hatred is active displeasure, envy passive. We need not wonder that envy turns to soon to hatred.

The further one advances in experience, the closer one comes to the unfathomable; the more one learns to utilize experience, the more one recognizes that the unfathomable is of no practical value.

One would give generous alms if one had the eyes to see the beauty of a cupped receiving hand.

We are our own aptest deceiver.

Beautiful is greater than Good, for it includes the Good.

The proper place for liberality is in the realm of the emotions.

Many young painters would never have taken their pencils in hand if they could have felt, known, and understood, early enough, what really produced a master like Raphael.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

Mastery passes often for egotism.

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

A man's shortcomings are taken from his epoch; his virtues and greatness belong to himself.

A rainbow which lasts for a quarter of an hour is looked at no longer.

First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.