Quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Let us live in as small a circle as we will, we are either debtors or creditors before we have had time to look round.

Life teaches us to be less harsh with ourselves and with others.

Error is acceptable as long as we are young but one must not drag it along into old age.

Trust yourself, then you will know how to live.

It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.

The child, offered the mother's breast, Will not in the beginning grab it; But soon it clings to it with zest. And thus at wisdom's copious breasts You'll drink each day with greater zest.

America, you have it better than our continent, the old one.

Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.

The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.

Devote each day to the object then in time and every evening will find something done.

In art the best is good enough.

One lives but once in the world.

O'er all the hilltopsIs quiet now,In all the treetopsHearest thouHardly a breath;The birds are asleep in the trees:Wait; soon like theseThou too shalt rest.

The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.

The fate of the architect is the strangest of all. How often he expends his whole soul, his whole heart and passion, to produce buildings into which he himself may never enter.

So dear night the half of life is, And the fairest half indeed.

One must be something to be able to do something.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows on rows of natural objects, classified with name and form.

Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.

Create, artist! Do not talk!

My peace is gone,My heart is heavy.

It has been said that figures rule the world; maybe. I am quite sure that it is figures which show us whether it is being ruled well or badly.

The artist may be well advised to keep his work to himself till it is completed, because no one can readily help him or advise him with it… but the scientist is wiser not to withhold a single finding or a single conjecture from publicity.