Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Please send me your last pair of shoes, worn out with dancing as you mentioned in your letter, so that I might have something to press against my heart.”

“Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen.”

“Once I blazed across the sky,Leaving trails of flame;I fell to earth, and here I lie -Who'll help me up again?-A Shooting Star”

“Bakat dikembangkan dalam ketenangan,Watak dibentuk dalam kegalauan dunia.”

“Just take a look at our patrons, and you'll knowSome don't appreciate us, others never will.”

“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 newThat's serious, but entertaining too?”

“Begitu anda percaya pada diri anda sendiri,Anda tahu bagaimana harus hidup.”

“One never goes so far as when one doesn't know where one is going.”

“This is the true measure of love: when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will ever love in the same way after us.”

“Say what you will of fortitude, but show me the man who can patiently endure the laughter of fools when they have obtained an advantage over him. 'Tis only when their nonsense is without foundation that one can suffer it without complaint.”

“Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.”

“We usually lost today because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.”

“One can stand anything except a succession of ordinary days.”

“We know accurately only when we know little; doubt grows with knowledge.”

“nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart.”

“Die meisten verarbeiten den größten Teil der Zeit, um zu leben, und das bißchen, das ihnen von Freiheit übrig bleibt, ängstigt sie so, daß sie alle Mittel aufsuchen, um es loszuwerden...”

“Colors are the deeds/ and sufferings of light.”

“What is uttered from the heart alone will win the heart of others to your own.”

“And when I look around the apartment where I now am,—when I see Charlotte’s apparel lying before me, and Albert’s writings, and all those articles of furniture which are so familiar to me, even to the very inkstand which I am using,—when I think what I am to this family—everything. My friends esteem me; I often contribute to their happiness, and my heart seems as if it could not beat without them; and yet—if I were to die, if I were to be summoned from the midst of this circle, would they feel—or how long would they feel—the void which my loss would make in their existence? How long! Yes, such is the frailty of man, that even there, where he has the greatest consciousness of his own being, where he makes the strongest and most forcible impression, even in the memory, in the heart of his beloved, there also he must perish,—vanish,—and that quickly.I could tear open my bosom with vexation to think how little we are capable of influencing the feelings of each other. No one can communicate to me those sensations of love, joy, rapture, and delight which I do not naturally possess; and though my heart may glow with the most lively affection, I cannot make the happiness of one in whom the same warmth is not inherent.Sometimes I don’t understand how another can love her, is allowed to love her, since I love her so completely myself, so intensely, so fully, grasp nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her!I possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. I possess so much, but without her I have nothing.One hundred times have I been on the point of embracing her. Heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it! And laying hold is the most natural of human instincts. Do not children touch everything they see? And I!Witness, Heaven, how often I lie down in my bed with a wish, and even a hope, that I may never awaken again! And in the morning, when I open my eyes, I behold the sun once more, and am wretched. If I were whimsical, I might blame the weather, or an acquaintance, or some personal disappointment, for my discontented mind; and then this insupportable load of trouble would not rest entirely upon myself. But, alas! I feel it too sadly; I am alone the cause of my own woe, am I not? Truly, my own bosom contains the source of all my pleasure. Am I not the same being who once enjoyed an excess of happiness, who at every step saw paradise open before him, and whose heart was ever expanded towards the whole world? And this heart is now dead; no sentiment can revive it. My eyes are dry; and my senses, no more refreshed by the influence of soft tears, wither and consume my brain. I suffer much, for I have lost the only charm of life: that active, sacred power which created worlds around me,—it is no more. When I look from my window at the distant hills, and behold the morning sun breaking through the mists, and illuminating the country around, which is still wrapped in silence, whilst the soft stream winds gently through the willows, which have shed their leaves; when glorious Nature displays all her beauties before me, and her wondrous prospects are ineffectual to extract one tear of joy from my withered heart,—I feel that in such a moment I stand like a reprobate before heaven, hardened, insensible, and unmoved. Oftentimes do I then bend my knee to the earth, and implore God for the blessing of tears, as the desponding labourer in some scorching climate prays for the dews of heaven to moisten his parched corn.”

“Everything transitory is but an image.”

“If we examine every stage of our lives, we find that from our first breath to our last we are under the constraint of circumstances. And yet we still possess the greatest of all freedoms, the power of developing our innermost selves in harmony with the moral order of the universe, and so winning peace of heart whatever obstacles we meet.”

“A lovely, pure, noble, and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which forms a hero, sinks beneath a burden which it cannot bear, and must not cast away. All duties are holy for him; the present is too hard. Impossibilities have been required of him; not in themselves impossibilities, but such for him. He winds, and turns, and torments himself; he advances and recoils, is ever put in mind, ever puts himself in mind; at last does all but lose his purpose from his thoughts; yet still without recovering his peace of mind.”

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

“I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.”

“Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different.”

“It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.”

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

“Suffer or triumph, be the hammer or the anvil.”

“A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.”

“The greater part of all the mischief in the world arises from the fact that men do not sufficiently understand their own aims.”

“Habe nun, ach! Philosophie,Juristerei und Medizin,Und leider auch TheologieDurchaus studiert, mit heißem Bemühn.Da steh ich nun, ich armer Tor!Und bin so klug als wie zuvor;Heiße Magister, heiße Doktor garUnd ziehe schon an die zehen JahrHerauf, herab und quer und krummMeine Schüler an der Nase herum-Und sehe, daß wir nichts wissen können!Das will mir schier das Herz verbrennen.Zwar bin ich gescheiter als all die Laffen,Doktoren, Magister, Schreiber und Pfaffen;Mich plagen keine Skrupel noch Zweifel,Fürchte mich weder vor Hölle noch Teufel-Dafür ist mir auch alle Freud entrissen,Bilde mir nicht ein, was Rechts zu wissen,Bilde mir nicht ein, ich könnte was lehren,Die Menschen zu bessern und zu bekehren.”

“The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it. ”

“If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”

“To be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state.”

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

“Remember to live.”

“It is better to do the smallest thing in the world than to hold half an hour to be too small a thing.”

“Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd run away.”

“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise, we harden.”

“A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.”

“We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.”

“If I love you, what business is it of yours?”

“A word spoken is a terrible thing when it suddenly utters what the heart has long allowed.”

“To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.”

“Nothing is therefore more dangerous than solitude. Our imagination, forced by its very nature to unfold, nourished by the fantastic visions of poetry, gives shape to a whole order of creatures of which we are the lowliest, and everything around us seems to be more glorious, everyone else more perfect...If, on the other hand, we can make up our minds to go about our daily tasks, resigned to our feelings, and hardships, we often find that, in spite of our meanderings and procrastinations, we have gone farther than quite a few others have gone with their sails unfurled and steering gear functioning.”

“Nothing is worth more than this day.”

“Two souls, alas, are housed within my breast,And each will wrestle for the mastery there.”

“Every day one should at least hear one little song, read one good poem, see one fine painting and -- if at all possible -- speak a few sensible words.”

“I love those who yearn for the impossible.”