Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Quotes

It is the fortunate who should extol fortune. [Ger., Das Gluck erhebe billig der Begluckte.]

Every day look at a beautiful picture, read a beautiful poem, listen to some beautiful music, and if possible, say some reasonable thing.

To quit smoking, you must first want to quit, but then you must also do the quitting

If a man knows where to get good advice, it is as though he could supply it himself.

It is a great error to take oneself for more than one is, or for less than one is worth.

There is no patriotic art and no patriotic science.

People can only live with their equals, and not even with them; for in the long run they cannot tolerate that someone is their equal.

Our modern wars make many unhappy while they last and none happy when they are over.

Everyone only hears what he understands.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

In all times it is only individuals that have advanced science, not the age.

One is led astray alike by sympathy and coldness, by praise and by blame

The history of knowledge is a great fugue in which the voices of the nations one after the other emerge.

One glance, one word from you gives more pleasure than all the wisdom of this world.

All theory, my friend, is grey, But green is life's glad golden tree.

As long as you don't practice it, this dying and becoming, You are only a dreary guest on this dark earth.

National literature does not mean much these days; now is the age of world literature, and every one must contribute to hasten thearrival of that age.

Translators can be considered as busy matchmakers who praise as extremely desirable a half-veiled beauty. They arouse an irresistible yearning for the original.

The light is there, and colors surround us. However, if there were no light nor colors in our own eye, we wouldn't perceive such things outside of us.

The happiest man is the one who finds happiness at home.

It is working within limits that the craftsman reveals himself.

Talents are nurtured best in solitude, But character on life's tempestuous seas!

The flowers of life are but illusions. How many fade away and leave no trace.

Mastery is often taken for egotism.

It is a very hard and troublesome thing to dispose of whole, half, and quarter-mistakes; to sift them and assign the portion of truth to its proper place.

A human being needs only a small plot of ground on which to be happy, and even less to lie beneath.

Nothing can be compared to the new life that the discovery of another country provides for a thoughtful person. Although I am still the same I believe to have changed to the bones.

Colors are light's suffering and joy

What is the destiny of man, but to fill up the measure of his sufferings, and to drink his allotted cup of bitterness?

Everything transitory is but an image.

On all the peaks lies peace.

We're only really thinking when we can't think out fully what we are really thinking about!

With the growth of knowledge our ideas must from time to time be organized afresh. The change takes place usually in accordance with new maxims as they arise, but it always remains provisional.

The highest cannot be spoken; it can only be acted.

Animals, we have been told, are taught by their organs. Yes, I would add, and so are men, but men have this further advantage that they can also teach their organs in return.

Let's plunge ourselves into the roar of time, the whirl of accident; may pain and pleasure, success and failure, shift as they will -- it's only action that can make a man.

One cannot always be a hero, but one can always be a man.

Distrust those in whom the desire to punish is strong.

There are people who pay attention to the weaknesses of their friends; that is to no avail. I have always closely watched and profited from the strengths of my adversaries.

God made man simple, but how he changed and got complicated is hard to say.

It is equally a mistake to hold one's self too high, or to rate one's self too cheap.

One must be something to be able to do something.

The one who always strives, That one can be redeemed.

The written word has this advantage, that it lasts and can await the time when it is allowed to take effect.

The errors of the observer come from the qualities of the human mind.

Who is sure of their own motives can in confidence advance or retreat.

The little man is still a man.

Error is to truth as sleep is to waking. I have observed that one turns, as if refreshed, from error back to truth.

A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for them, and he patiently suffers much for them; but he becomes impatient if he is required to give them up.

Hypotheses are lullabies for teachers to sing their students to sleep.