"One cannot always be a hero, but..." - Quote by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
One cannot always be a hero, but one can always be a man.
More by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“What is now the foliage moving?Air is still, and hush'd the breeze,Sultriness, this fullness loving,Through the thicket, from the trees.Now the eye at once gleams brightly,See! the infant band with mirthMoves and dances nimbly, lightly,As the morning gave it birth,Flutt'ring two and two o'er earth.”
“Yes! to this thought I hold with firm persistence;The last result of wisdom stamps it true;He only earns his freedom and existenceWho daily conquers them anew.”
“Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.”
More on Humanity
“If only nature is real and if, in nature, only desire and destruction are legitimate, then, in that all humanity does not suffice to assuage the thirst for blood, the path of destruction must lead to universal annihilation.”
“But in every matter the consensus of opinion among all nations is to be regarded as the law of nature.”
“I am not a political figure, nor do I want to be one; but I come with my heart.”
More on Character
“In the Book of Poetry there are three hundred poems, but the meaning of all of them may be put in a single sentence: Have no debasing thoughts.”
“A perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance.”
“In a man devoted to knowledge, pity seems almost ridiculous, like delicate hands on a cyclops.”