Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

“Hold your powers together for something good and let everything go that is for you without result and is not suited to you.”

“War is in truth a disease in which the juices that serve health and maintenance are used for the sole purpose of nourishing something foreign, something at odds with nature.”

“When one is polite in German, one lies.”

“Sweet moonlight, shining full and clear, Why do you light my torture here? How often have you seen me toil, Burning last drops of midnight oil. On books and papers as I read, My friend, your mournful light you shed. If only I could flee this den And walk the mountain-tops again, Through moonlit meadows make my way, In mountain caves with spirits play - Released from learning's musty cell, Your healing dew would make me well!”

“Ah! my poor brain is racked and crazed, My spirit and senses amazed!”

“What man does not know,Or has not thought of,Wanders in the nightThrough the labyrinth of the mind.”

“The fine emotions whence our lives we moldLie in the earthly tumult dumb and cold.”

“Every situation--nay, every moment--is of infinite worth; for it is the representative of a whole eternity.”

“Reality surpasses imagination; and we see, breathing, brightening, and moving before our eyes sights dearer to our hearts than any we ever beheld in the land of sleep.”

“Love of truth shows itself in this, that a man knows how to find and value the good in everything.”

“The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.”

“There is no past we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternal now that builds and creates out of the past something new and better.”

“It is a great pleasure to transport one's-self into the spirit of the times; to see how a wise man has thought before us, and to what a glorious height we have at last carried it.”

“Mankind? That is an abstraction. There have always been and always will be only individuals.”

“Women are silver dishes into which we put golden apples.”

“Thou tremblest before anticipated ills, and still bemoanest what thou never losest.”

“[Nature's] crown is Love. Only through Love can we come near her. She puts gulfs between all things, and all things strive to be interfused. She isolates everything, that she may draw everything together. With a few draughts from the cup of Love she repays for a life full of trouble.”

“Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.”

“People should talk less and draw more. Personally, I would like to renounce speech altogether and, like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say visually.”

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

“A king there was once reigning, Who had a goodly flea, Him loved he without feigning, As his own son were he!”

“In comradeship is danger countered best.”

“And I have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair, that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence.”

“We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.”

“He who is firm in will molds the world to himself.[Ger., Aber wer fest auf dem Sinne beharrt, der bildet die Welt sich.]”