German author Quotes

“There are few who have at once thought and capacity for action. Thought expands, but lames; action animates, but narrows.”

“If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.”

“Wine rejoices the heart of man and joy is the mother of all virtues.”

“One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.”

“Beware of a man of one book.”

“No one as ever completed their apprenticeship.”

“To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome.”

“Let no one be like another, yet everyone like the highest. How is this done? Be each one perfect in himself.”

“The world only goes forward because of those who oppose it.”

“None are so hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes.”

“To have more, you must first be more.”

“Seldom in the business and transactions of ordinary life, do we find the sympathy we want.”

“Perseverance is a silent power that grows irresistibly greater with time.”

“The clever reader who is capable or reading between these lines what does not stand written in them but is nevertheless implied will be able to form some conception.”

“One does not get to know that one exists until one rediscovers oneself in others.”

“It is always a sign of an unproductive time when it concerns itself with petty and technical aspects [in philology], and likewiseit is a sign of an unproductive person to pursue such trifles.”

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

“Still this planet's soil for noble deeds grants scope abounding.”

“Confronted by outstanding merit, there is no way of saving one's ego except by love”

“We don't get to know anything but what we love.”

“As for solitude, I cannot understand how certain people seek to lay claim to intellectual stature, nobility of soul and strength of character, yet have not the slightest feeling for seclusion; for solitude, I maintain, when joined with a quiet contemplation of nature, a serene and conscious faith in creation and the Creator, and a few vexations from outside is the only school for a mind of lofty endowment.”

“The person of analytic or critical intellect finds something ridiculous in everything. The person of synthetic or constructive intellect, in almost nothing.”

“This world could not exist if it were not so simple. The ground has been tilled a thousand years, yet its powers remain ever the same; a little rain, a little sun, and each spring it grows green again.”

“Life teaches us to be less harsh with ourselves and with others.”

“He is happy as well as great who needs neither to obey nor to command in order to be something.”