Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Quotes

So dear night the half of life is, And the fairest half indeed.

Let your trouble be Light will follow dark Though the heaven falls You may hear the lark.

Like the star that shines afar, Without haste and without rest, Let each one wheel with steady sway Round the task that rules the day, And do their best.

He who possesses science and art, Possesses religion as well; He who possesses neither of these, Had better have religion.

From desire I plunge to its fulfilment, where I long once more for desire.

He who serves the public is a poor animal; he worries himself to death and no one thanks him for it.

I am the Spirit that denies.

Life is but a preparation for what there is to come.

When Nature begins to reveal her open secret to a man, he feels an irresistible longing for her worthiest interpreter, Art.

Beauty can never really understand itself.

If you lay duties upon people and give them no rights, you must pay them well.

Every idea appears at first as a strange visitor, and when it begins to be realized, it is hardly distinguishable from fantasy.

Certain faults are necessary to the individual if he is to exist.

If a man sets out to study all the laws, he will have no time left to transgress them.

A man must cling to the belief that the incomprehensible is comprehensible; otherwise he would not try to fathom it.

There is no greater consolation for mediocrity than that the genius is not immortal.

To every one [Nature] appears in a form of his own. She hides herself in a thousand names and terms, and is always the same.

Who enslaves another's manhood with weak human power alone, Lays a heavier yoke of bondage thoughtlessly upon his own.

There is nothing worth thinking but it has been thought before; we must only try to think it again.

The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognizing a truth which has already been recognized by others.

I come more and more to the conclusion that one must take the side of the minority which is always the more intelligent one.

He who is wise puts aside all claims which may dissipate his attention, and confining himself to one branch excels in that.

A man avails himself of the truth so long as it is serviceable; but he seizes on what is false with a passionate eloquence as soon as he can make a momentary use of it.

I am very anxious to please the public, particularly as it lives and lets live.

I can promise to be upright, but not to be without bias. [Ger., Aufrichtig zu sein kann ich versprechen; unparteiisch zu sein aber nicht.]

What a mighty spirit in a narrow bosom. [Ger., Welch' hoher Geist in einer engen Brust.]

He who would reproach an author for obscurity should look into his own mind to see whether it is quite clear there. In the dusk the plainest writing is illegible.

Lay hold of life with both hands, whenever thou mayest seize it, it is interesting.

A mathematician is only perfect insofar as he is a perfect man, sensitive to the beauty of truth.

The desire to explain what is simple by what is complex, what is easy by what is difficult, is a calamity.

A world without love would be no world.

The useful may be trusted to further itself, for many produce it and no one can do without it; but the beautiful must be specially encouraged, for few can present it, while yet all have need of it.

What is the true test of character unless it be its progressive development in the bustle and turmoil, in the action and reaction of daily life.

No one feels himself easy in a garden which does not look like the open country.

Wind is the loving Wooer of waters; Wind blends together Billows all-foaming. Spirit of man, Thou art like unto water! Fortune of man, Thou art like unto wind!

Properly speaking, we learn from those books only that we cannot judge. The author of a book that I am competent to criticise would have to learn from me.

On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold, My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold.

Instruction does much, but encouragement everyt

15"General ideas and great conceit are always a fair way to bring about terrible misfortune.

If you would create something, you must be something.

Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd run away.

What matters creative endless toil, When, at a snatch, oblivion ends the coil?

The way you see people is the way you treat them and the way you treat them is what they become.

Behaviour is a mirror in which every one displays his own image.

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.

Anything in the world can be endured, except a series of wonderful days.

Everything is hard before it is easy

If the whole world I once could seeOn free soil stand, with the people freeThen to the moment might I say, Linger awhile. . .so fair thou art.

Nothing is more highly to be prized than the value of each day