Quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.

Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

I will listen to anyone's convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself.

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.

There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.

The coward only threatens when he is safe.

Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.

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

There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.

A person hears only what they understand.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.

Great thoughts and a pure heart, that is what we should ask from God.

Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture.

Doubt grows with knowledge.

We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.

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

Every spoken word arouses our self-will.

Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate.

Do not give in too much to feelings. A overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth.

Mastery passes often for egotism.

Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.

The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.

The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.

Love does not dominate; it cultivates.

It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.

If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.

Death is a commingling of eternity with time; in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time.

Few people have the imagination for reality.

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.

He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.

If I love you, what business is it of yours?

Sowing is not as difficult as reaping.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.

Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.

Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.

Mysteries are not necessarily miracles.

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.

Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.

He who does not think much of himself is much more esteemed than he imagines.

I love those who yearn for the impossible.

Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.

A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.

It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.

I call architecture frozen music.

Nothing is worth more than this day.