Quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Courage is the commitment to begin without any guarantee of success.

Live dangerously and you live right.

On the pinnacle of success man does not stand firm long.

It is delivery that makes the orators success.

Deny yourself! You must deny yourself! That is the song that never ends.

Yes, my love, who soever lives, loses, . . . but he also wins. [Ger., Ja, meine Liebe, wer lebt, verliebt . . . aber er gewinnt auch.]

Let's plunge ourselves into the roar of time, the whirl of accident; may pain and pleasure, success and failure, shift as they will -- it's only action that can make a man.

There is nothing more fearful than ignorance in action.

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

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Age merely shows what children we remain.

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.

Don't say that you want to give, but go ahead and give! You'll never catch up with a mere hope.

One would give generous alms if one had the eyes to see the beauty of a cupped receiving hand.

Treat a man as if he were what he ought to be and you help him become what he is capable of being

Sin writes histories, goodness is silent.

Courage and modesty are the most unequivocal of virtues, for they are of a kind that hypocrisy cannot imitate; they too have this quality in common, that they are expressed by the same colour.

Tolerance comes of age. I see no fault committed that I myself could not have committed at some time or other.

Behavior is a mirror in which every one displays his own image

If we could do away with death, we wouldn't object; to do away with capital punishment will be more difficult. Were that to happen, we would reinstate it from time to time.

A useless life is only an early death

Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.

It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.