Quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I've often heard it said, a preacher Might learn, with a comedian for a teacher.

Erfolg hat drei Buchstaben: TUN!

Solitude is precious balm to my heart in these paradistic parts.

Must we go tinkering about with Nature before we can enjoy it?

Call that a wonder, Cretan-born woman? 9970 Never listened when poetry Sang its sweet lessons? Ionia's and Hellas's Ancientest legends Of a gods-and-heroes abundance, Never heard them? Nothing that's done today's More than a pitiful Echo of glorious Ancestral days; 9980 Nothing, your story is, Compared with the lovely lie, More trustworthy than truth, That is sung about Maia's son.

Whom I once get hold of, he will Find the whole world pointless, futile. 11810 Over him gloom casts its dun net, Blinding him to sunrise, sunset, Though possessing all his senses, Inwardly there's only darkness,

But I read so seldom, that I prefer books suited exactly to my taste. And I like those authors best whose scenes describe my own situation in life, - and the friends who are about me, whose stories touch me with interest, from resembling my own homely existence,- which, without being absolutely paradise, is, on the whole, a source of indescribable happiness.

That the life of Man is but a dream has been sensed by many a one, and I too am never free of the feeling.

How great a spectacle! But that, I fear, Is all it is.

Oh dear, oh dear, that our frames should lack Wings with which to match our soaring spirit,

How happy I am that my heart can feel the simple, harmless bliss of the person who brings to his table a cabbage he has grown himself, not just the cabbage alone but all the good days, the beautiful morning he planted it, the lovely evenings he watered it, and as he had his joy in its advancing growth, he enjoys it all again in the one moment.

Once we are lost unto ourselves, everything else is lost to us.

The best part of such noble liquor, No less than gold and jewelry, By preference dwells in night and gloom. The wise man searches tirelessly; 5200 To see by daylight, that's child's play, But where it's dark, there mysteries have their home.

Can we never take pleasure in nature without having recourse to art?

After the play, he counts on playing cards, and he on a wild night in some girl's arms - why, in a cause like this, must you poor fools so sorely try the Muses' kindness

He'd have improved if you'd not given Him a mere glimmer of the light in heaven; He calls it Reason, and it has only increased His power to be beastlier than a beast.

Man needs only a small patch of earth for his pleasures, and a smaller one still to rest beneath.

MEPHISTO. Good fortune's closely linked to merit, A thought that never enters foolish minds; The Philosopher's Stone's there in their hands? The Philosopher's searching everywhere for it.

He remarked as much to Charlotte on his return, and she was inclined to agree with him. 'As life draws us along,' she replied, 'we think we are acting of our own volition, ourselves choosing what we shall do and what we shall enjoy; but when we look more closely we see they are only the intentions and inclinations of the age which we are being compelled to comply with.

there would be far less suffering amongst mankind, if men — and God knows why they are so fashioned — did not employ their imaginations so assiduously in recalling the memory of past sorrow, instead of bearing their present lot with equanimity.

Can that be a delusion which makes us happy?

What provokes me worst of all are our fateful bourgeois distinctions of rank. Of course I know as well as anyone that differences of class are necessary, and that they work greatly to my own advantage: but I wish they would not place obstacles in my way when I might enjoy a little pleasure...

But he is so exceedingly accurate, that, if he only fancies he has said a word too precipitate, or too general, or only half true, he never ceases to qualify, to modify, and extenuate, till at last he appears to have said nothing at all.

Only a God can take in all of them, The whole lot, for He dwells in eternal light, While we poor devils are stuck down below 1810 In darkness and gloom, lacking even candlelight, And all you qualify for is, half day, half night.