Famous Quotes

Quotes by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

• In art the best is good enough.
• In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.
• It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.
• It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.
• It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.
• It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.
• Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live.
• Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.
• Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds.
• Love can do much, but duty more.
• Love does not dominate it cultivates.
• 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.
• Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.
• 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.
• Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.
• No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.
• None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
• Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.
• On all the peaks lies peace.
• One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.
• 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.
• One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.
• Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.
• Personality is everything in art and poetry.
• Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture.
• Science arose from poetry... when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.
• Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.
• Superstition is the poetry of life.
• The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.
• The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.
• The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.
• The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.
• The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.
• The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.
• The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.
• The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.