Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Quotes

True happiness springs from moderation. [Ger., Aus Massigkeit entspringt ein reines Gluck.]

To be sure, a good work of art can and will have moral consequences, but to demand of the artists moral intentions, means ruiningtheir craft.

All of us, just because we are able to talk, also believe we are able to talk about language.

Nature is, after all, the only book that offers important content on every page.

Yes, my love, who soever lives, loses, . . . but he also wins. [Ger., Ja, meine Liebe, wer lebt, verliebt . . . aber er gewinnt auch.]

Always to distrust is an error, as well as always to trust.

An angel! Nonsense! Everybody so describes his mistress; and yet I find it impossible to tell you how perfect she is, or why she is so perfect: suffice it to say she has captivated all my senses.

No one as ever completed their apprenticeship.

We amuse ourselves painting our prison-walls with bright figures and brilliant landscapes.

Men are joined by conviction, sundered by opinion.

The fate of the architect is the strangest of all. How often he expends his whole soul, his whole heart and passion, to produce buildings into which he himself may never enter.

The smallest hair throws its shadow. [Ger., Das kleinste Harr wirft seinen Schatten.]

He who knows no foreign languages knows nothing of his own.

With knowledge grows doubt.

The thinker makes a great mistake when he asks after cause and effect. They both together make up the indivisible phenomenon.

For the nature of women is closely allied to art

Courage and modesty are the most unequivocal of virtues, for they are of a kind that hypocrisy cannot imitate; they too have this quality in common, that they are expressed by the same color.

Alas! sorrow from happiness is oft evolved.

Since I have heard often enough that everyone in the end has his own religion, nothing seemed more natural to me than to fashion my own.

In the end we retain from our studies only that which we practically apply.

I do not speak of what I cannot praise.

Poor fool! in whose petty estimation all things are little.

To appear at church every Sunday; to look down upon, and let himself be looked at for an hour by the congregation, is the best means of becoming popular which can be recommended to a young sovereign.

There are men who never err, because they never propose anything rational.

Thou must (in commanding and winning, or serving and losing, suffering or triumphing) be either anvil or hammer.

A good man, through obscurest aspirations Has still an instinct of the one true way.

And here, poor fool, with all my lore I stand no wiser than before.

No sacred fane requires us to submit to insult.

All sects seem to me to be right in what they assert, and wrong in what they deny.

Duty is the demand of the hour.

But what is your duty? What the day demands. [Ger., Was aber ist deine Pflicht? Die Forderung des Tages.]

What reason would grope for in vain, spontaneous impulse ofttimes achieves at a stroke, with light and pleasureful guidance.

A noble man is led far by woman's gentle words. [Ger., Ein edler Mann wird durch ein gutes Wort Der Frauen weit gefuhrt.]

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

Love can do much, but duty more.

Nothing should be valued higher than the value of the day.

If you modestly enjoy your fame you are not unworthy to rank with the holy.

The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.

We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.

He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides, or he is quite unworthy of it.

The effects of good music are not just because it's new; on the contrary music strikes us more the more familiar we are with it.

Every offense is avenged on earth.

Everyone believes in his youth that the world really began with him, and that all merely exists for his sake.

While man's desires and aspirations stir he cannot choose but err.

The field of experience is the whole universe in all directions. Theory remains shut up within the limits of human faculties.

The greatest act of faith takes place when a man finally decides that he is not God.

Self-love exaggerates our faults as well as our virtues.

Come my little one, and give me your hand.

Sowing is not as difficult as reaping.

If the mass of people hesitate to act, strike with swiftly and with boldness, the brave heart that understands and seizes opportunity can everything.