Quotation Explorer - 'Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe'

I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wishes. The greater part of all mischief in the world arises from the fact that men do not sufficiently understand their own aims. They have undertaken to build a tower, and spend no more labor on the foundation than would be necessary to erect a hut. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Do not give in too much to feelings. A overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Literature decays only as men become more and more corrupt. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Cease endlessly striving for what you would like to do and learn to love what must be done. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A mans manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Voglio vedere chi può superarmi nel talento di amare. In verità è un talento pieno di dolore, di sofferenza, di lacrime; ma mi è così congeniale, così adatto, che difficilmente vi rinuncerò mai. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nothing is worth more than this day. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, until they take root in our personal experience. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The phrases that men hear or repeat continually, end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language, and forthwith it is something entirely different. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Each one sees what he carries in his heart. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What is not fully understood is not possessed. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in even greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen itself as much as it desires: beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it shines forth in the Gospels, it will not go. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A man's shortcomings are taken from his epoch; his virtues and greatness belong to himself. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Ich mögte beten wie Moses im Koran: Herr mache mir Raum in meiner engen Brust. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Talent develops in tranquillity, character in the full current of human life. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Only learn to seize good fortune, for good fortune is always here. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
All truly wise thoughts have been thoughts already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We are all pilgrims who seek Italy. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If you've never eaten while crying you don t know what life tastes like. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Du hast so viele Leben, wie du Sprachen sprichst. (You have as many lives as the number of languages you speak.) - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A clever man commits no minor blunders. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Talent develops in tranquility, character in the full current of human life. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Närrisch, dass jeder in seinem FalleSeine besondere Meinung preist!Wenn Islam Gott ergeben heißt,Im Islam leben und sterben wir alle! - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I do not know everything; still many things I understand. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We only see what we know. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Because everyone uses language to talk, everyone thinks they can talk about language. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Oh God, how do the world and heavens confine themselves, when our hearts tremble in their own barriers! - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The greatest evil that can befall man is that he should come to think ill of himself. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but is sure to repent of every ill-judged outlay. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Trust yourself, then you will know how to live. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Everything in the world may be endured, except continual prosperity. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Every day one should at least hear one little song, read one good poem, see one fine painting and -- if at all possible -- speak a few sensible words. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A man can stand anything except a succession of ordinary days. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Then indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting over lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Reason can never be popular. Passions and feelings may become popular, but reason will always remain the sole property of a few eminent individuals. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Science arose from poetry--when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain as 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 and could be. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it; boldness has genius, power and magic in it. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When you take a man as he is, you make him worse. When you take a man as he can be, you make him better. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Each one's no longer consciousOf the high wall, or the rest:Since the one enduring fortress,Is the soldier's iron breast.If you’d live unconquered,Quickly arm, and fight the real foe:Every wife an Amazon bred,And every child a hero. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Classicism is health, romanticisim is sickness. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nothing is worse than active ignorance. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
There is no better deliverance from the world than through art; and a man can form no surer bond with it than through art. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Jesus fühlte rein und dachteNur den Einen Gott im stillen;Wer ihn selbst zum Gotte machte,Kränkte seinen heiligen Willen. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Die Welt ist voller Torheit, Dumpfheit, Inkonsequenz und Ungerechtigkeit. Es gehört viel Mut dazu, diesen nicht das Feld zu räumen. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
You will always find [hatred] strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture. - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Wer nicht von dreitausend Jahren sich weiß Rechenschaft zu geben, bleib im Dunkeln unerfahren, mag von Tag zu Tage leben. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do; and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He who wishes to exert a useful influence must be careful to insult nothing. Let him not be troubled by what seems absurd, but concentrate his energies to the creation of what is good. He must not demolish, but build. He must raise temples where mankind may come and partake of the purest pleasure. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If you would create something,you must be something. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The way you see people is the way you treat them and the way you treat them is what they become. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The limits of my language are the limits of my universe. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
So divinely is the world organized that every one of us, in our place and time, is in balance with everything else. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The true, prescriptive artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless artist, following blind instinct, after an appearance of naturalness. The one leads to the highest peaks of art, the other to its lowest depths. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Des Menschen Kraft, im Dichter offenbartThe human power is revealed by poetIl potere dell'umanità si rivela nel poeta - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
More light! Give me more light! - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What you feed in yourself that grows. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When a human awakens to a great dream and throws the full force of his soul over it, all the universe conspires in your favor. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He who moves not forward, goes backward. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it! - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
This is the true measure of love: when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will ever love in the same way after us. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Treat a man as he appears to be, and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers & cities; but to know someone who thinks & feels with us, & who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Talih onun göğsüne bir ruh koymuş kiOnu hep çılgınca yönetir ara vermeden,Ve acele eden ve hemen buyuransaAtlar yeryüzünün sevinçlerini ve doğanın yasalarını. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Exageras tudo e, por certo, cometes pelo menos o erro de aceitar o suicídio, que é do que estamos falando agora, como se fosse uma grande ação, quando não é nada mais do que simplesmente fraqueza. Pois, para ser sincero, é mais fácil morrer do que suportar com firmeza uma vida de tormentos. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He only earns his freedom and existence who daily conquers them anew. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm. ... In the real world, all rests on perseverance. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Ohne Hast, aber ohne Rast. - Without haste, but without rest. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Isso é bem outra coisa", replicou Alberto, "porque um homem que se deixa arrastar por uma paixão violenta perde a faculdade de refletir e deve ser considerado como um ébrio, como um demente. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd run away. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The best is the deep quiet in which I live and grow against the world, and harvest what they cannot take from me by fire and sword. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The happy do not believe in miracles. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Choose well. Your choice is brief, and yet endless. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
That is the true season of love, when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will love in the same way after us. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
By seeking and blundering we learn. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We really learn only from those books that we cannot judge. The author of a book that we were able to judge would have to learn from us. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Everything is hard before it is easy - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Let this little book be thy friend, if, owing to fortune or through thine own fault, thou canst not find a dearer companion. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Donde no hay mujeres no existen los buenos modales - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Es ist nicht genug, zu wissen, man muß auch anwenden; es ist nicht genug, zu wollen, man muß auch tun. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Anecdotes and maxims are rich treasures to the man of the world, for he knows how to introduce the former at fit place in conversation. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I love the deep quiet in which I live and grow against the world and harvest what they cannot take from me by fire or sword. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Niemand ist hoffnungsloser versklavt als jene, die fälschlicherweise glauben, frei zu sein. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When ideas fail, words come in very handy. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Treat people as if they were what they should be, and you help them become what they are capable of becoming. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Live dangerously and you live right. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Must it so be that whatever makes man happy must later become the source of his misery? - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It is ever true that he who does nothing for others, does nothing for himself. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Colors are light's suffering and joy - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Whatever you can do or dream, begin it. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Was Du in Dir nährst, das wächst. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If I love you, what business is it of yours? - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Everything in the world may be endured except continued prosperity. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We know accurately only when we know little; with knowledge doubt increases. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When an idea is wanting, a word can always be found to take its place. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I will say nothing against the course of my existence. But at bottom it has been nothing but pain and burden, and I can affirm that during the whole of my 75 years, I have not had four weeks of genuine well-being. It is but the perpetual rolling of a rock that must be raised up again forever. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Viewed from the summit of reason, all life looks like a malignant disease and the world like a madhouse. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The society of women is the element of good manners. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I will say nothing... against the course of my existence. But at bottom it has been nothing but pain and burden, and I can affirm that during the whole of my 75 years, I have not had four weeks of genuine well-being. It is but the perpetual rolling of a rock that must be raised up again forever. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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