Quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Hold your powers together for something good and let everything go that is for you without result and is not suited to you.

One should not search for anything behind the phenomena. They themselves are the message.

Man errs, till he has ceased to strive.

There are people who make no mistakes because they never wish to do anything worth doing.

Auch aus Steinen die einem in den Weg gelegt werden, kann man schöne Dinge bauen.

I myself must also say I believe it is true that in the end humanitarianism will triumph; only I fear that at the same time the world will be one big hospital and each person will be the other person's humane keeper.

Distrust all those in whom the urge to punish is strong.

Colors are light's suffering and joy

Nature understands no jesting; she is always true, always serious, always severe; she is always right, and the errors and faults are always those of man. The man incapable of appreciating her, she despises; and only to the apt, the pure, and the true, does she resign herself and reveal her secrets.

Gracious Providence, to whom I owe all my powers, why didst thou not withhold some of those blessings I possess, and substitute in their place a feeling of self-confidence and contentment?

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

There is no crime of which I do not deem myself capable.

It is delightful to transport one's self into the spirit of the past, to see how a wise man has thought before us.

Aber ich habe sie gehabt, ich habe das Herz gefühlt, die große Seele, in deren Gegenwart ich mir schien mehr zu sein, als ich war, weil ich alles war, was ich sein konnte.

I call architecture frozen music.

Whenever I hear people talking about "liberal ideas," I am always astounded that men should love to fool themselves with empty sounds. An idea should never be liberal; it must be vigorous, positive, and without loose ends so that it may fulfill its divine mission and be productive. The proper place for liberality is in the realm of the emotions.

Imagination, however high it flies, Falls short, however hard it tries. But spirits fit to see deeply invest In what is boundless a boundless trust.

Suffer or triumph, be the hammer or the anvil.

And those whom once my song had cheered and gladdened, If still they live, rove through the world now saddened.

We would not say very much in company if we realized how often we misunderstand what others say.

Though the ear choose not to hear, In the heart I echo,clear: Always found, and never sought, Praised, as well as cursed, in thought.

Närrisch, dass jeder in seinem Falle Seine besondere Meinung preist! Wenn Islam Gott ergeben heißt, Im Islam leben und sterben wir alle!

one must submit, like a traveller who has to ascend a mountain: if the mountain was not there, the road would be both shorter and pleasanter; but there it is, and he must get over it.

Doubt grows with knowledge.