Quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though it were his own.

When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.

The brilliant passes, like the dew at morn; The true endures, for ages yet unborn.

National literature does not mean much these days; now is the age of world literature, and every one must contribute to hasten thearrival of that age.

One needs only to get old to become milder; I don't see anyone make a mistake I hadn't also made.

One spares old people just as one spares children.

What you desire when young, you have in abundance when old.

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.

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

Nothing is to be rated higher than the value of the day.

All lyrical work must, as a whole, be perfectly intelligible, but in some particulars a little unintelligible.

Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.

Were the eye not of the sun, How could we behold the light? If God's might and ours were not as one, How could His work enchant our sight?

The world of reason is to be regarded as a great and immortal being, who ceaselessly works out what is necessary, and so makes himself lord also over what is accidental.

A genuine work of art usually displeases at first sight, as it suggests a deficiency in the spectator.

Not art and science only, but patience will be required for the work.

Never let a day pass without looking at some perfect work of art, hearing some great piece of music and reading, in part, some great book.

If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet.

Seize this very minute. What you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Begin it and the work will be completed

Neither a work of nature nor one of art we get to know when they have been finished; we must surprise them in the process of beingcreated so as to understand them to some degree.

I have often reaped what others have sowed. My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name Goethe.

Waste not a day in vain digression; with resolute, courageous trust seek every possible impression and make it firmly your posession you'll then work on because you must.

Do thine own task, and be therewith content.