Quotes from Johann von Goethe

Knowing Is Not Enough; We Must Apply. Wishing Is Not Enough; We Must Do.

Treat people as if they were what they should be and you help them become what they are capable of becoming.

A reasonable man needs only to practice moderation to find happiness.

Hope is the second soul of the unhappy.

A life without love, without the presence of the beloved, is nothing but a mere magic-latern show. We draw out slide after slide, swiftly tiring of each, and pushing it back to make haste for the next.

A man who does not know a foreign language is ignorant of his own.

A man's errors are what make him amiable.

Age does not make us childish, as some say it only finds us true children still.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.

Anecdotes and maxims are rich treasures to the man of the world, for he knows how to introduce the former at fit place in conversation.

Art is long, life short judgment difficult, opportunity transient.

Courage and modesty are the most unequivocal of virtues, for they are of a kind that hypocrisy cannot imitate they too have this quality in common, that they are expressed by the same color.

Death is Nature's expert advice to get plenty of Life.

Difficulties increase the nearer we approach our goal.

Everybody wants to be somebody nobody wants to grow.

Everything a human being wants can be divided into four components love, adventure, power and fame.

God could cause us considerable embarrassment by revealing all the secrets of nature to us we should not know what to do for sheer apathy and boredom.

He who seizes the right moment is the right man.

He who wishes to exert a useful influence must be careful to insult nothing. Let him not be troubled by what seems absurd, but concentrate his energies to the creation of what is good. He must not demolish, but build. He must raise temples where mankind may come and partake of the purest pleasure.

Life is not anything, but an opportunity for something.

Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds.

Man supposes that he directs his life and governs his actions, when his existence is irretrievably under the control of destiny.

My poor head is in such a whirl, my mind is all in bits.