Quotes by "Johann Wolfgang von Goethe"

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

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.

Love does not dominate; it cultivates.

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.

You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it never Rises from the soul, and sways The heart of every single hearer, With deepest power, in simple ways. You’ll sit forever, gluing things together, Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps, Blowing on a miserable fire, Made from your heap of dying ash. Let apes and children praise your art, If their admiration’s to your taste, But you’ll never speak from heart to heart, Unless it rises up from your heart’s space.

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.

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

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

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

If you would create something, you must be something.

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

Difficulties increase the nearer we get to the goal.

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

Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in even greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen itself as much as it desires: beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it shines forth in the Gospels, it will not go.

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

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.

What matters creative endless toil, When, at a snatch, oblivion ends the coil?

Ohne Hast, aber ohne Rast. - Without haste, but without rest.

The way you see people is the way you treat them and the way you treat them is what they become.