Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Quotes

Whatever Nature undertakes, she can only accomplish it in a sequence. She never makes a leap.

Death is Nature's expert advice to get plenty of Life.

If you inquire what people are like here, I must answer, "The same as everywhere."

It is only necessary to grow old to become more charitable and even indulgent. I see no fault committed by others that I have not committed myself.

Prudent and active men, who know their strength and use it with limit and circumspection, alone go far in the affairs of the world.

We don't get to know anything but what we love.

Who is the happiest man? He who is alive to the merit of others, and can rejoice in their enjoyment as if it were his own.

Originality provokes originality.

You don't love if you don't take the beloved's faults for virtues.

We are pantheists when we study nature, polytheists when we write poetry, monotheists in our morality.

What one has wished for in youth, in old age one has in abundance.

Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them.

We are forced to participate in the games of life before we can possibly learn how to use the options in the rules governing them.

Music is so elevated that it is beyond the reach of intellect and there flows from it an influence which is all-potent, and which noone can explain.

The most difficult thing is what is thought to be the simplest; to really see the things which are before your eyes.

There are people who make no mistakes because they never wish to do anything worth doing.

My counsel is, to force nothing, and rather to trifle and sleep away all unproductive days and hours, than on such days to compose something that will afterwards give no pleasure.

We eagerly get hold of a law that serves as a weapon to our passions.

Mannerism always wants to be finished and doesn't enjoy the process. Genuine, truly great talent, however, finds its greatest satisfaction in the production.

Just begin and the mind grows heated; continue, and the task will be completed!

We all walk in mysteries. We are surrounded by an atmosphere about which we still know nothing at all.

Beware of wishing for anything in youth, because you will get it in middle age.

Daily life is more instructive than the most effective book.

Every need whose true satisfaction is denied leads by necessity to faith.

You are, when all is done-just what you are.

Give me those days with heart in riot, The depths of bliss that touched on pain, The force of hate, and love's disquiet- Ah, give me back my youth again!

Oh happy he who still can hope in our day to breathe the truth while plunged in seas of error! What we don't know is really what we need, and what we know is of no use to us whatever!

The man who acts never has any conscience; no one has any conscience but the man who thinks

To hard necessity ones will and fancy must conform.

I have so much in me, and the feeling for her absorbs it all; I have so much, and without her it all comes to nothing.

For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.

He who does not see the whole world in his friends, does not deserve that the world should hear of him.

To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.

One ought, everyday, to hear a song, read a fine poem, and, if possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

That which is eternal in Woman lifts us above.

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.

Napoleon affords us an example of the danger of elevating one's self to the absolute, and sacrificing everything to the carrying out of an idea.

Energy will do anything that can be done in the world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities will make a two-legged animal a man without it.

I was oppressed with the sensations I then felt; I sunk under the weight of them.

The master proves himselin recognizing his limitations.

A resolution that is communicated is no longer within thy power; thy attentions become now the plaything of chance; he who would have his commands certainly carried out must take man by surprise.

There is nothing more frightful than an active ignorance. [Ger., Es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine thatige Unwissenheit.]

Thou tremblest before anticipated ills, and still bemoanest what thou never losest.

What makes poetry? A full heart, brimful of one noble passion.

If a man or woman is born ten years sooner or later, their whole aspect and performance shall be different.

Ah! my poor brain is racked and crazed, My spirit and senses amazed!

Battle not with monsters, for then you become one.

Once I blazed across the sky, Leaving trails of flame; I fell to earth, and here I lie - Who'll help me up again? -A Shooting Star

Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.

War is in truth a disease in which the juices that serve health and maintenance are used for the sole purpose of nourishing something foreign, something at odds with nature.