Words matter. These are the best Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.
Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.
Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.
In art the best is good enough.
A person hears only what they understand.
Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.
I will listen to anyone’s convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself.
No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.
No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.
Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them.
First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.
A correct answer is like an affectionate kiss.
One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.
Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.
We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.
There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.
There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.
Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.
Nothing is worth more than this day.
The human mind will not be confined to any limits.
He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.
Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.
There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.
Life is the childhood of our immortality.
The human mind will not be confined to any limits.
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
Few people have the imagination for reality.
The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.
Character develops itself in the stream of life.
Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.
He is dead in this world who has no belief in another.
If a man or woman is born ten years sooner or later, their whole aspect and performance shall be different.
Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.
It is better to be deceived by one’s friends than to deceive them.
It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.
To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.
Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.
Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.
The formation of one’s character ought to be everyone’s chief aim.
What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.
Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.
Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.
To create something you must be something.
Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?
The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.
In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm… in the real world all rests on perseverance.
Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them.
Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.
Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.
He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.
Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.
One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.
Fresh activity is the only means of overcoming adversity.
The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.
A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.
First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.
The coward only threatens when he is safe.
One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.
Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.
Precaution is better than cure.
The little man is still a man.
If you modestly enjoy your fame you are not unworthy to rank with the holy.
Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.
I will listen to anyone’s convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself.
The man who occupies the first place seldom plays the principal part.
To rule is easy, to govern difficult.
What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.
The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.
Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.
We will burn that bridge when we come to it.
The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.
Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.
Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.
A man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.
Girls we love for what they are; young men for what they promise to be.
Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.
I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.
He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.
The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.
Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.
One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.
When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.
The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.
Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.
Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.
For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.
Devote each day to the object then in time and every evening will find something done.
A correct answer is like an affectionate kiss.
Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture.
That I be not as those are who spend the day in complaining of headache and the night in drinking the wine which gives the headache!
The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.
An unused life is an early death.
Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.
All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.
Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
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