Quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

No one should desire to live in irregular circumstances; but if by chance a man falls into them, they test his character and show of how much determination he is capable.

Nothing is more highly to be prized than the value of each day

Entbehren sollst du - sollst entbehren. Thou shalt forego, shalt do without.

No one is more of a slave than he who thinks himself free without being so.

My grandmother used to tell us a story of a mountain of loadstone. When any vessels came near it, they were instantly deprived of their ironwork: the nails flew to the mountain, and the unhappy crew perished amidst the disjointed planks.

Let it go out, the sun's fire, If light dawns inside our souls, In our own hearts we'll discover What the outer world withholds.

The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognising a truth which has already been recognised by others.

The world turns gray, the air grows cool, the fog blows in. Only at evening can you really value home.

O full and splendid Moon, whom I Have, from this desk, seen climb the sky

Es ist ein einförmig Ding um das Menschengeschlecht. Die meisten verarbeiten ihre Zeit, um zu leben, und das bißchen, das ihnen von Freiheit übrig bleibt, ängstigt sie so, dass sie alle Mittel aufsuchen, um es los zu sein

It's in the anomalies that nature reveals its secrets.

Misunderstandings and lethargy perhaps produce more wrong in the world than deceit and malice do.

Courage is the commitment to begin without any guarantee of success

I am fully convinced that the soul is indestructible, and that its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set in night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere.

Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are.

A human being needs only a small plot of ground on which to be happy, and even less to lie beneath.

The things I know, every man can know, but, oh, my heart is mine alone!

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

We can accept the unpleasant more readily than we can the inconsequential.

It is not easy in this world for one person to understand the next one.

Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded.

A man's name is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him, and which one perchance may safely twitch and pull, but a perfectly fitting garment, which, like the skin, has grown over and over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape without injuring the man himself.

En esta vida son pocos los momentos que se resuelven con un sí o con un no.

All force strives forward to work far and wide To live and grow and ever to expand; Yet we are checked and thwarted on each side By the world's flux and swept along like sand: In this internal storm and outward tide We hear a promise, hard to understand: From the compulsion that all creatures binds, Who overcomes himself, his freedom finds.