Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Quotes

Over all the mountain tops is peace. In all treetops you perceive scarcely a breath. The little birds in the forest are silent. Wait then; soon, you too, will have peace.

A judge who cannot punish, in the end associates themselves with the criminal.

A leaf that is destined to grow large is full of grooves and wrinkles at the start. Now if one has no patience and wants it smooth offhand like a willow leaf, there is trouble ahead.

Never by reflection, but only by doing is self- knowledge possible to one.

The aim of living is life itself.

If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.

He who does not know foreign languages does not know anything about his own.

Clever people are always the best conversations lexicon.

We always hope, and in all things it is better to hope than to despair.

There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on how one looks at it.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.

The really unhappy person is the one who leaves undone what they can do, and starts doing what they don't understand; no wonder they come to grief.

The beginning of faith is the beginning of fruitfulness; but the beginning of unbelief, however glittering, is empty.

He who is resolute conquers grief.

A useless life is an early death. [Ger., Ein unnutz Leben ist ein fruher Tod.]

I have possessed that heart, that noble soul, in whose presence I seemed to be more than I really was, because I was all that I could be.

When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.

We gladly put antiquity above our age but not posterity. Only a father doesn't begrudge his son's talent.

Mediocrity has no greater consolation than in the thought that genius is not immortal.

For a strolling damsel a doubtful reputation bears.

Patriotism corrupts history.

The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through all eternity.

The society of women is the element of good manners.

Alas! how much there is in education, and in our social institutions, to prepare us and our children for insanity.

What one doesn't understand one doesn't possess.

The dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety.

Time is a strange thing. It is a whimsical tyrant, which in every century has a different face for all that one says and does.

Who are you then?" "I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

The person who in shaky times also wavers only increases the evil, but the person of firm decision fashions the universe.

The greatest happiness for the thinking person is to have explored the explorable and to venerate in equanimity that which cannotbe explored.

To accept good advice is but to increase one's own ability.

Our foibles are really what make us lovable.

Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different.

To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed That can make life a garden.

A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise.

Few men have imagination enough for reality.

We can really respect a man only if he doesn't always look out for himself.

Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine

Let us live in as small a circle as we will, we are either debtors or creditors before we have had time to look around.

Nature goes her own way, and all that to us seems an exception is really according to order.

It is not enough to take steps which may someday lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.

What government is the best? That which teaches us to govern ourselves. [Ger., Welche Regierung die beste sei? Diejenige die uns lehrt uns selbst zu regieren.]

If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.

Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.

To rule is easy, to govern difficult.

The most original of authors are not so because they advance what is new, but more because they know how to say something, as if it had never been said before.

In art, the best is good enough.