Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Truth is contrary to our nature, not so error, and this for a very simple reason: truth demands that we should recognize ourselves as limited, error flatters us that, in one way or another, we are unlimited.”

“We may get to know the world however we choose, it will always keep a day and night aspect.”

“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.”

“When scholars study a thing, they strive to kill it first, if it's alive; then they have the parts and they've lost the whole, for the link that's missing was the living soul.”

“Wild dreams torment me as I lie. And though a god lives in my heart, though all my power waken at his word, though he can move my every inmost part - yet nothing in the outer world is stirred. thus by existence tortured and oppressed I crave for death, I long for rest.”

“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.”

“He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.”

“Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess. ”

“I thank you, Wilhelm, for your heartfelt sympathy, for your well-intentioned advice, but beg you to be quiet. Let me stick it out. Blessedly exhausted as I am, I have strength enough to carry through. I honor religion, you know that, I feel it is a staff for many weary souls, refreshment for many a one who is pining away. But--can it be, must it be, the same thing for everyone? If you look at the great world, you see thousands for whom it wasn't, thousands for whom it will not be the same, preached or unpreached, and must it then be the same for me? Does not the son of God Himself say that those would be around Him whom the Father had given Him? But if I am not given? If the Father wants to keep me for Himself, as my heart tells me?--I beg you, do not misinterpret this, do not see mockery in these innocent words. What I am laying before you is my whole soul; otherwise I would rather have kept silent, as I do not like to lose words over things that everyone knows as little about as I do. What else is it but human destiny to suffer out one's measure, drink up one's cup?--And if the chalice was too bitter for the God from heaven on His human lips, why should I boast and pretend that it tastes sweet to me? And why should I be ashamed in the terrible moment when my entire being trembles between being and nothingness, since the past flashes like lightning above the dark abyss of the future and everything around me is swallowed up, and the world perishes with me?--Is that not the voice of the creature thrown back on itself, failing, trapped, lost, and inexorably tumbling downward, the voice groaning in the inner depths of its vainly upwards-struggling energies: My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me? And if I should be ashamed of the expression, should I be afraid when facing that moment, since it did not escape Him who rolls up heaven like a carpet?”

“He who moves not forward, goes backward.”

“Mefistófeles: “De sol e de mundos nada sei dizer, vejo apenas como os homens se atormentam. O pequeno Deus do mundo [o homem] continua na mesma e está tão admirável assim como no primeiro dia. Um pouco melhor ele viveria, não lhe tivesses dado o brilho da luz celeste; ele chama isto razão e lança mão dela somente para ser mais animalesco do que cada animal.”

“For in music there is no material to be deducted.”

“A rainbow which lasts for a quarter of an hour is looked at no longer.”

“Does not man lack the force at the very point where he needs it most? And when he soars upward in joy, or sinks down in suffering, is not checked in both, is he not returned again to the dull, cold sphere of awareness, just when he was longing to lose himself in the fullness of the infinite.”

“Difficulties increase the nearer we get to the goal.”

“Lose the day loitering, 'twill be the same storyTo-morrow, and the next more dilatory,For indecision brings its own delays,And days are lost lamenting o'er lost days.Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute!What you can do, or think you can, begin it!Only engage, and then the mind grows heated;Begin it, and the work will be completed.”

“Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.”

“God help us -- for art is long, and life so short.”

“Nothing can be compared to the new life that the discovery of another country provides for a thoughtful person. Although I am still the same I believe to have changed to the bones.”

“One should not search for anything behind the phenomena. They themselves are the message.”

“Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public. ”

“Dear me! how long is art!And short is our life!I often know amid the scholar's strifeA sinking feeling in my mind and heart.How difficult the means are to be foundBy which the primal sources may be breached;And long before the halfway point is reached,They bury a poor devil in the ground.”

“Everybody wants to be somebody,but nobody wants to grow... ”

“I am the spirit that negates.And rightly so, for all that comes to beDeserves to perish wretchedly;'Twere better nothing would begin.Thus everything that that your terms, sin,Destruction, evil represent—That is my proper element.”

“All that is transitory is but a metaphor.”

“Every form correctly seen is beautiful.”

“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.”

“At the moment of commitment the entire universe conspires to assist you.”

“Rest not Life is sweeping by go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time.”

“I've often heard it said a preachermight learn with a comedian for a teacher.”

“Niemand ist mehr Sklave, als der sich für frei hält, ohne es zu sein.None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”

“Who are you then?" "I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.”

“I'm glad that I am not young in so thoroughly finished a world.”

“Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound.”

“Conscience is the virtue of observers and not of agents of action.”

“Über allen GipfelnIst Ruh,In allen WipfelnSpürest duKaum einen Hauch;Die Vögelein schweigen in Walde.Warte nur, baldeRuhest du auch.”

“Auch aus Steinen die einem in den Weg gelegt werden, kann man schöne Dinge bauen.”

“I'm fairly fond of boys, but my preference is for girls; When I have enough of a girl, she serves me still as a boy.”

“We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves. ”

“For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him, he must regard himself as greater than he is.”

“Oblivion is full of people who allow the opinions of others to overrule their belief in themselves.”

“The intelligent man finds everything laughable, the sensible man hardly anything.”

“When ideas fail, words come in very handy.”

“Es ist nicht genug, zu wissen, man muß auch anwenden; es ist nicht genug, zu wollen, man muß auch tun.”

“One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.”

“I have so much in me, and the feeling for her absorbs it all; I have so much, and without her it all comes to nothing.”

“If you've never eaten while crying you don t know what life tastes like.”

“You must be either the servant or the master, the hammer or the anvil.”

“I laugh at my heart, and do its will.”

“If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.”