Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The wealth that cannot be administered is a burden.”

“A state of affairs which leads to daily vexation is not the right state.”

“All truths are old, and all that we have to do is recognize and utter them anew.”

“It is quite beyond me how anyone can believe God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveal to us our relationship to it, if our hearts fail to tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we shall assuredly not learn it from books, which are at best designed but to give names to our errors.”

“As all Nature's thousands changes But one changeless God proclaim; So in Art's wide kingdom ranges One sole meaning still the same: This is Truth, eternal Reason, Which from Beauty takes its dress, And serene through time and season Stands aye in loveliness.”

“The day is for mistake and error, sequence of time for success and carrying out. The one who anticipates is master of the day.”

“My worthy friend, gray are all theoriesAnd green alone Life's golden tree.”

“To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.”

“We're really up against it, we poor women: A bachelor's a hard thing to convert”

“We find from experience that yellow excites a warm and agreeable impression.... The eye is gladdened, the heart expanded and cheered, a glow seems at once to breathe toward us.”

“How to please the public - that's the test, But nowadays I find I'm in a fix; I know they're not accustomed to the best, But they've all read so much they know the tricks. How can we give then something fresh and new That's serious, but entertaining too?”

“Limitation of aims is the mother of wisdom and the secret of achievement.”

“Say what we may of the inadequacy of translation, yet the work is and will always be one of the weightiest and worthiest undertakings in the general concerns of the world.”

“Life is too short to drink bad wine.”

“The flowers of life are but visionary. How many pass away and leave no trace behind! How few yield any fruit,--and the fruit itself, how rarely does it ripen! And yet there are flowers enough; and is it not strange, my friend, that we should suffer the little that does really ripen to rot, decay, and perish unenjoyed?”

“Not art and science only, but patience will be required for the work.”

“Whoso shrinks from ideas ends by having nothing but sensations.”

“Our mistakes and failures are always the first to strike us, and outweigh in our imagination what we have accomplished and attained.”

“Energy is the basis of everything. Every Jew, no matter how insignificant, is engaged in some decisive and immediate pursuit of a goal... It is the most perpetual people of the earth.”

“To be sure, we have inherited abilities, but our development we owe to thousands of influences coming from the world around us from which we appropriate what we can and what is suitable to us.”

“Courage is the commitment to begin without any guarantee of success.”

“Whatever necessity lays upon thee, endure; whatever she commands, do.”

“It is opposition that makes us productive.”

“Time itself is an element.”

“It is related of an Englishman that he hanged himself to avoid the daily task of dressing and undressing.”

“Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes what we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt.”

“There is but one poetry,--true poetry.”

“Care is taken that trees do not grow into the sky.”

“To quit smoking, you must first want to quit, but then you must also do the quitting”

“He who enjoys doing and enjoys what he has done is happy.”

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather....In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or is dehumanized.”

“All lyrical work must, as a whole, be perfectly intelligible, but in some particulars a little unintelligible.”

“The best benefit we derive from history is the enthusiasm it excites.”

“A man doesn't learn to understand anything unless he loves it.”

“The eternal feminine doth draw us upward.[Ger., Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan.]”

“Behavior is a mirror in which every one shows his image.[Ger., Das Betragen ist ein Spiegel in welchem jeder sein Bild zeigt.]”

“True happiness springs from moderation.”

“If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.”

“Happy is it, indeed, for me that my heart is capable of feeling the same simple and innocent pleasure as the peasant whose table is covered with food of his own rearing, and who not only enjoys his meal, but remembers with delight the happy days and sunny mornings when he planted it, the soft evenings when he watered it, and the pleasure he experienced in watching its daily growth.”

“Nine requisites for contented living: Health enough to make work a pleasure. Wealth enough to support your needs. Strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them. Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them. Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished. Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor. Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others. Faith enough to make real the things of God. Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.”

“Love, whose power youth feels, is not suitable for the elderly, just as little as anything that presupposes productivity. It is rare that productivity lasts through the years.”

“Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.”

“Give shape, artist! don't talk!Your poem be but a breath.”

“Against great advantages in another, there are no means of defending ourselves except love.”

“It is better for you to suffer an injustice than for the world to be without law. Therefore, let everyone submit to the law.”

“That which thy fathers have bequeathed to thee, earn it anew if thou wouldst possess it.”

“God made man simple, but how he changed and got complicated is hard to say.”

“A mind, once formed, is never suited after,One yet in growth will ever grateful be.[Ger., Wer fertig ist, dem ist nichts recht zu machen,Ein Werdender wird immer dankbar sein.]”

“Just as, out of habit, one consults a run-down clock as though it were still going, so too one may look at the face of a beautiful woman as though he still loved her.”

“Without my attempts in natural science, I should never have learned to know mankind such as it is. In nothing else can we so closely approach pure contemplation and thought, so closely observe the errors of the senses and of the understanding, the weak and strong points of character.”