Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

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

Being full of mischief, they love to listen;they gladly obey, for they like to betray you,pretending to be sent from Heaven,and lisping like angels, while they lie.

All that is transitory is but a metaphor.

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

Only air and light and the love of friends! Let no man lose heart who still has these.

It is ever true that he who does nothing for others, does nothing for himself.

Do not give in too much to feelings. A overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth.

For in music there is no material to be deducted.

Whilst I could not think of any man whose spirit was, or needed to be, more enlarged than the spirit of a genuine merchant. What a thing it is to see the order which prevails throughout his business! By means of this he can at any time survey the general whole, without needing to perplex himself in the details. What advantages does he derive from the system of book-keeping by double entry? It is among the finest inventions of the human mind; every prudent master of a house should introduce it into his economy.

If I wasn't a devil myself I'd give Me up to the Devil this very minute.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free

Divide and rule, the politician cries;Unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.

No one has ever properly understood me, I have never fully understood anyone; and no one understands anyone else

Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it!

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers & cities; but to know someone who thinks & feels with us, & who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.

The best slave is the one who thinks he is free.

If you would create something,you must be something.

I possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. I possess so much, but without her I have nothing.

Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.

The world turns gray, the air grows cool, the fog blows in. Only at evening can you really value home.

Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.

It's in the anomalies that nature reveals its secrets.

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.

The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.

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.

Cease endlessly striving for what you would like to do and learn to love what must be done.

if only these treasures were not so fragile as they are precious and beautiful.

In this world one is seldom reduced to make a selection between two alternatives. There are as many varieties of conduct and opinion as there are turns of feature between an aquiline nose and a flat one.

Truth has to be repeated constantly, because Error also is being preached all the time, and not just by a few, but by the multitude. In the Press and Encyclopaedias, in Schools and Universities, everywhere Error holds sway, feeling happy and comfortable in the knowledge of having Majority on its side.

In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm. ... In the real world, all rests on perseverance.

schade dass die Natur nur einen Mensch aus dir schuf / denn zum wurdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff" (loose translation: nature, alas, made only one being out of you although there was material for a good man & a rogue)

Solitude is precious balm to my heart in these paradistic parts.

Classicism is health, romanticisim is sickness.

Literature decays only as men become more and more corrupt.

There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.

[Alexander von] Humboldt showers us with true treasures.