Quotes from Goethe Johann Wolfgang von

Just trust yourself and you'll learn the art of living.

Basic characteristics of an individual organism: to divide, to unite, to merge into the universal, to abide in the particular, to transform itself, to define itself, and as living things tend to appear under a thousand conditions, to arise and vanish, to solidify and melt, to freeze and flow, to expand and contract. Since these effects occur together, any or all may occur at the same moment.

Those who have never seen themselves surrounded on all sides by the sea can never possess an idea of the world, and of their relation to it.

Wilhelm what is our world like without love? Like a magic lantern without a light. The moment you bring the little lamp into it, the brightest pictures shine on your white wall. And if it were no more than that, only passing phantoms, still it always makes us happy when we stand there like innocent boys enraptured by the wondrous visions. [...] Are they phantoms, Wilhelm, if they make us happy?

Human beings are much of a muchness. Most spend th greater part of their time working in order to live, and what bit of freedom they are left with makes them so anxious they strive by all available means to be rid of it.

All our learned schoolmasters and tutors are agreed that children do not know why they want what they want. But no one likes to think - blindingly obvious though it is, in my view - that grown-ups too, like children, totter around on the earth and, like the children, do not know where they have come from or where they are going, act no more than children do for any true purpose and are just as governed by biscuits, cakes, and the rod.

It is natural that if some fright or calamity surprises us when we are enjoying ourselves it will affect us more strongly than usual, in part because of the contrast thus made very palpable, and in part, and perhaps more, because our senses have been opened to feeling and so take in impressions much faster.

So the most restless wanderer longs in the end for his homeland again and finds in his cottage, in the arms of his wife, in the midst of his children, in the work of looking after them, the joy he had sought in vain in the wide world.

I came across my diary again today, which for some time I have neglected, and I'm astonished how consciously, step by step, I walked into it all. How clearly I have always seen my condition and acted like a child nevertheless, and how clearly I still see now, and still with no sign of a cure.

Friend, we are all human, and the bit of sense any one of us might have is of little or no use when the passions rage and by the constraints of being human we are put under duress." [...] And we parted, not having understood one other. But then here on earth no one ever easily understands anyone else.

And I run after this phantom of the mind till it leads me to an abyss I shudder back from.

I have so much and my feeling for her devours everything, I have so much and without her everything is nothing.

PENSAR ES FÁCIL. ACTUAR ES DIFÍCIL. ACTUAR COMO SE PIENSA ES LO MÁS DIFÍCIL DE TODO.

Man imagines himself to be conducting his own life; and irresistibly his inmost being is drawn to its fate.

En helaas hebben huwelijken in het algemeen iets lomps. Ze bederven de tederste verhoudingen, en dat komt toch eigenlijk alleen door de botte zekerheid waarvan ten minste één partij profiteert. Alles is vanzelfsprekend en men lijkt de verbintenis alleen gesloten te hebben opdat beiden hun eigen gang kunnen gaan.

Es preciso obrar con los niños como obra con nosotros el Señor, que nunca nos hace más felices que cuando nos deja embriagarnos con una ilusión agradable.

Solch ein Gewimmel möcht ich sehn auf freiem Grund mit freiem Volke stehn Zum Augenblicke dürft ich sagen: Verweile doch du bist so schön!...

Kas spindi – t? akimirka paglemžia, / O tikras menas pasilieka amžiams.

Volk und Knecht und Ãœberwinder Sie gestehen, zu jeder Zeit, Hoechtes Glueck der Erdenkinder Sei nur die Personlichkeit.

Whatever is yet to come, I shall never be able to say that I have not felt the greatest, the purest joy life can hold.

Tutti i pensieri intelligenti sono già stati pensati, occorre solo tentare di ripensarli.