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GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von Quotes
(1749-1832), German poet, dramatist and philosopher
An actor should take lessons from the painter and the sculptor. Not only should he make attitude his study, but he should highly develop his mind by an assiduous study of the best writers, ancient and modern, which will enable him not only to understand his parts, but to communicate a nobler coloring to his manners and mien.
To accept good advice is but to increase one's own ability.
Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.
It is only necessary to grow old to become more charitable and even indulgent.—I see no fault committed by others that I have not committed myself.
Anecdotes and maxims are rich treasures to the man of the world, for he knows how to introduce the former at fit places in conversation, and to recollect the latter on proper occasions.
To tremble before anticipated evils, is to bemoan what thou hast never lost.
The highest problem of any art is to cause by appearance the illusion of a higher reality.
Tell me with whom thou art found, and I will tell thee who thou art.
The most original authors are not so because they advance what is new, but because they put what they have to say as if it had never been said before.
Every author in some degree portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.
Behavior is a mirror in which every one displays his image.
It is a belief in the Bible, the fruit of deep meditation, which has served me as the guide of my moral and literary life.—I have found it a capital safely invested, and richly productive of interest.
I can promise to be candid, though I may not be impartial.
What I possess I would gladly retain.—Change amuses the mind, yet scarcely profits.
Talents are best nurtured in solitude; character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.
If you would create something, you must be something.
In praising or loving a child, we love and praise not that which is, but that which we hope for.
I will not be as those who spend the day in complaining of headache, and the night in drinking the wine that gives it.
Where there is much light, the shadow is deep.
As to the value of conversions, God only can judge.—He alone can know how wide are the steps which the soul has to take before it can approach to a community with him, to the dwelling of the perfect, or to the intercourse and friendship of higher natures.
There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love.—From it springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.
There is no outward sign of true courtesy that does not rest on a deep moral foundation.
It matters little whether a man be mathematically, or philologicaily, or artistically cultivated, so he be but cultivated.
Man supposes that he directs his life and governs his actions, when his existence is irretrievably under the control of destiny.
The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.
We know accurately only when we know little; with knowledge doubt increases.
Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have any, but keep your doubts to yourself, for I have enough of my own.
Duty is carrying on promptly and faithfully the affairs now before you.— It is to fulfill the claims of today.
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.
Do the duty that lies nearest to thee.
Correction does much, but encouragement does more.—Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.
Energy will do anything that can be done in the world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities will make a two-legged animal a man without it.
The little done vanishes from the sight of him who looks forward to what is still to do.
Epochs of faith, are epochs of fruitf'ulness; but epochs of unbelief, however glittering, are barren of all permanent good.
The confidant of my vices is my master, though he were my valet.
All is created and goes according to order, yet o'er our lifetime rules an uncertain fate.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth.
By skillful conduct and artificial means a person may make a sort of name for himself; but if the inner jewel be wanting, all is vanity, and will not last.
The best of all governments is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.
The world cannot do without great men, but great men are very troublesome to the world.
Beware of her fair locks, for when she winds them round a young man's neck, she will not set him free again.
The phrases that men hear or repeat continually, end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence.
The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and the beginning of his life.
He only is happy as well as great who needs neither to obey nor command in order to be something.
Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate.
Nobody, they say, is a hero to his valet. Of course not; for one must be a hero to understand a hero.—The valet, I dare say, has great respect for some person of his own stamp.
The best thing which we derive from history is the enthusiasm that it raises in us.
He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.
In all things it is better to hope than to despair.
Ill-humor is but the inward feeling of our own want of merit; a dissatisfaction with ourselves which is always united with an envy that foolish vanity excites.
Men are so constituted that every one undertakes what he sees another successful in, whether he has aptitude for it or not.
Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.
Nature knows no pause in her progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.
There is nothing in the world more pitiable than an irresolute man, oscillating between two feelings, who would willingly unite the two, and who does not perceive that nothing can unite them.
He who wishes to exert a useful influence must be careful to insult nothing. Let him not be troubled by what seems absurd, but consecrate 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 pleasures.
Enjoy what thou hast inherited from thy sires if thou wouldst really possess it.—What we employ and use is never an oppressive burden; what the moment brings forth, that only can it profit by.
In the works of man as in those of nature, it is the intention which is chiefly worth studying.
A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking mainly of others.
One man's word is no man's word; we should quietly hear both sides.
Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.
We know accurately only when we know little; with knowledge doubt increases.
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.
What is not fully understood is not possessed.
A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is ignorant of his own.
Men show their character in nothing more clearly than by what they think laughable.
It is only necessary to grow old to become more indulgent. I see no fault committed that I have not committed myself.
A useless life is only an early death.
Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.
There is nothing in life so irrational, that good sense and chance may not set it to rights; nothing so rational, that folly and chance may not utterly confound it.
Life is the childhood of our immortality.
Literature is a fragment of a fragment; of all that ever happened, or has been said, but a fraction has been written, and of this but little is extant.
The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation; the two keep pace in their downward tendency.
The smallest hair throws its shadow.
We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.
We love a girl for very different things than understanding. We love her for her beauty, her youth, her mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults, caprices, and God knows what other inexpressible charms; but we do not love her understanding. Her mind we esteem if it is brilliant, and it may greatly elevate her in our opinion; nay, more, it may enchain us when we already love. But her understanding is not that which awakens and inflames our passions.
Unless we are accustomed to them from early youth, splendid chambers and elegant furniture had best be left to people who neither have nor can have any thoughts.
One cannot always be a hero, but one can always be a man.
The society of women is the element of good manners.
It never occurs to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.
Method will teach you to win time.
Music, in the best sense, does not require novelty; nay, the older it is, and the more we are accustomed to it, the greater its effect.
A man's name is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him, and which one perchance may safely twitch and pull, but a perfectly fitting garment, which, like the skin, has grown over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape without injuring the man himself.
Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.
There is no trifling with nature; it is always true, grave, and severe; it is always in the right, and the faults and errors fall to our share. It defies incompetency, but reveals its secrets to the competent, the truthful, and the pure.
Nature is the living, visible garment of God.
Each one sees what he carries in his heart.
Opinion
As our inclinations, so our opinions.
It is with true opinions which one has the courage to utter, as with pawns first advanced on the chessboard; they may be beaten, but they have inaugurated a game which must be won.
People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us; and this goes on to the end. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor.
If you would create something, you must be something.
The passions are like those demons with which Afrasahiab sailed down the Orus. Our only safety consists in keeping them asleep. If they wake, we are lost.
It is delightful to transport one's self into the spirit of the past, to see how a wise man has thought before us, and to what a glorious height we have at last reached.
No enjoyment is transitory; the impression which it leaves is lasting, and what is done with diligence and toil imparts to the spectator a secret force, of which one cannot say how far the effect may reach.
Superstition is the poetry of life, so that it does not injure the poet to be superstitious.
I hate all bungling as I do sin, but particularly bungling in politics, which leads to the misery and ruin of many thousands and millions of people.
I put no account on him who esteems himself just as the popular breath may chance to raise him.
Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it is sure to repent of every ill-judged outlay.
Devote each day to the object then in time, and every evening will find something done.
Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.
This life will not admit of equality; but surely that man who thinks he derives consequence and respect from keeping others at a distance, is as base-minded as the coward who shuns the enemy from the fear of an attack.
Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.
Everything in the world may be endured, except continual prosperity.
The public wishes itself to be managed like a woman; one must say nothing to it except what it likes to hear.
Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it; and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.
Whatever we may say against collections, which present authors in a disjointed form, they nevertheless bring about many excellent results. We are not always so composed, so full of wisdom, that we are able to take in at once the whole scope of a work according to its merits. Do we not mark in a book passages which seem to have a direct reference to ourselves? Young people especially, who have failed in acquiring a complete cultivation of mind, are roused in a praiseworthy way by brilliant passages.
There are three classes of readers: some enjoy without judgment; others judge without enjoyment; and some there are who judge while they enjoy, and enjoy while they judge. The latter class reproduces the work of art on which it is engaged.—Its numbers are very small.
Every reader if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author.
Sound and sufficient reason falls, after all, to the share of but few men, and those few men exert their influence in silence.
Let us not dream that reason can ever be popular. Passions, emotions, may be made popular, but reason remains ever the property of the few.
True religion teaches us to reverence what is under us, to recognize humility, poverty, wretchedness, suffering, and death, as things divine.
The mind is found most acute and most uneasy in the morning. Uneasiness is, indeed, a species of sagacity—a passive sagacity. Fools are never uneasy.
It is not where we have gathered up our brighter hopes, that the dawn of happiness breaks. It is not where we have glanced our eye with affright, that we find the deadliest gloom. What should this teach us? To bow to the great and only source of light, and live humbly and with confiding resignation.
He who is firm and resolute in will moulds the world to himself.
The soul of the Christian religion is reverence.
Boyle, it is said, never mentioned the name of God without a visible and reverent pause in his discourse.
While it is undesirable that any man should receive what he has not examined, a far more frequent danger is that of flippant irreverence.
Riches amassed in haste will diminish, but those collected by little and little will multiply.
We can offer up much in the large, but to make sacrifices in little things is what we are seldom equal to.
A resolution that is communicated is no longer within thy power; thy intentions become now the plaything of chance; he who would have his commands certainly carried out must take men by surprise.
What is the best government?—That which teaches us to govern ourselves.
No one who cannot master himself is worthy to rule, and only he can rule.
How shall we learn to know ourselves? By reflection? Never; but only through action. Strive to do thy duty; then shalt thou know what is in thee.
Self-knowledge is best learned, not by contemplation, but action.—Strive to do your duty, and you will soon discover of what stuff you are made.
Say nothing of yourself, either good, bad, or indifferent; nothing good, for that is vanity; nothing bad, for that is affectation; nothing indifferent, for that is silly.
It is equally a mistake to hold one's self too high, or to rate one's self too cheap.
The man who cannot enjoy his own natural gifts in silence, and find his reward in the exercise of them, will generally find himself badly off.
We ought not to isolate ourselves, for we cannot remain in a state of isolation. Social intercourse makes us the more able to bear with ourselves and with others.
I am fully convinced that the soul is indestructible, and that its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set in night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere.
So then the year is repeating its old story again. We are come once more, thank God! to its most charming chapter. The violets and the May flowers are as its inscriptions or vignettes. It always makes a pleasant impression on us, when we open again at these pages of the book of life.
Generally speaking, an author's style is a faithful copy of his mind. If you would write a lucid style, let there first be light in your own mind; and if you would write a grand style, you ought to have a grand character.
He who would reproach an author for obscurity should look into his own mind to see whether it is quite clear there. In the dusk the plainest writing is illegible.
Superstition is the poetry of life. It is inherent in man's nature; and when we think it is wholly eradicated, it takes refuge in the strangest holes and corners, whence it peeps out all at once, as soon, as it can do it with safety.
The absence of temptation is the absence of virtue.
How much is it to be wished that the celebration of nature and of God were intrusted to none but men of noble minds.
Thought
All truly wise thoughts have been thought 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.
It is better to be doing the most insignificant thing than to reckon even a half-hour insignificant.
We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright.
Tolerance comes with age; I see no fault committed that I myself could not have committed at some time or other.
It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.
A vain man can never be altogether rude.—Desirous as he is of pleasing, he fashions his manners after those of others.
Some of our weaknesses are born in us, others are the result of education; it is a question which of the two gives us most trouble.
He who has a firm will molds the world to himself.
I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wishes. The greater part of all the 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.
Happy the man who early learns the wide chasm that lies between his wishes and his powers!
The society of women is the element of good manners.
In general, a man in his younger years does not easily cast off a certain complacent self-conceit, which principally shows itself in despising what he has himself been a little time before.
Girls we love for what they are; young men for what they promise to be.
The destiny of any nation, at any given time, depends on the opinions of its young men under five-and-twenty.
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