Quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All is like, all unlike; all is useful and harmful, eloquent and dumb, reasonable and unreasonable. And what people profess about individual matters is often contradictory.

Even people who are entirely strange and indifferent to one another will exchange confidences if they live together for a while, and a certain intimacy is bound to develop.

Ja! diesem Sinne bin ich ganz ergeben, das ist der Weisheit letzter Schluß: nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben, der täglich sie erobern muß.

Listen to that lovely music, Better than mythology! Your gods, elderly and antique, Give them up, they're now passé. Those old tales have lost all meaning, We aim at a higher goal: From the soul must come the feeling That can move another's soul.

Da steh ich nun, ich armer Tor, und bin so klug als wie zuvor.

I sometimes cannot understand how she can love another, how she dares love another, when I love nothing in this world so completely, so devotedly, as I love her, when I know only her, and have no other possession.

There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.

We may get to know the world however we choose, it will always keep a day and night aspect.

Error is related to truth as sleeping is to waking. I have observed that when one has been in error, one turns to truth as though revitalized.

You are aware of only one unrest; Oh, never learn to know the other! Two souls, alas, are dwelling in my breast, And one is striving to forsake its brother.

Werd ich zum Augenblicke sagen: Verweile doch! du bist so schön! Dann magst du mich in Fesseln schlagen, Dann will ich gern zugrunde gehn!

Über allen Gipfeln Ist Ruh, In allen Wipfeln Spürest du Kaum einen Hauch; Die Vögelein schweigen in Walde. Warte nur, balde Ruhest du auch.

Show me the man who has the courage to hide his ill-humour, who bears the whole burden himself, without disturbing the peace of those around him. No: ill-humour arises from an inward consciousness of our own want of merit, from a discontent which ever accompanies that envy which foolish vanity engenders. We see people happy, whom we have not made so, and cannot endure the sight.

Blood is a juice of rarest quality.

All things transitory But as symbols are sent. Earth's insufficiency Here grows to event. The indescribable Here it is done. The Woman-Soul leads us upward and on!

Part of that power which would Do evil constantly and constantly does good.

What a man does not understand, he does not possess.

If you ask what the people here are like, I must tell you, "Like people everywhere!" Uniformity marks the human race.

Conscience is the virtue of observers and not of agents of action.

There are men who love their like and seek it; others love their opposite and follow after it.

Behaviour is a mirror in which everyone shows his image.

Men's wretchedness in soothe I so deplore, Not even I would plague the sorry creatures more.

Life seems so vulgar, so easily content with the commonplace things of every day, and yet it always nurses and cherishes certain higher claims in secret, and looks about for the means of satisfying them.

Let this little book be thy friend, if, owing to fortune or through thine own fault, thou canst not find a dearer companion.