Quotes from Goethe

Every day look at a beautiful picture read a beautiful poem listen to some beautiful music and if possible say some reasonable thing.

He is happiest be he king or peasant who finds peace in his home.

There is no crime of which I do not deem myself capable.

He alone deserves liberty and life who daily must win them anew.

But one must know where one stands, and where the others wish to go.

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.

I call architecture 'petrified music'.

Architecture is frozen music.

Ordinary people know little of the time and effort it takes to learn to read. I have been eighty years at it, and have not reached my goal.

Talents are best nurtured in solitude: character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Talent is nurtured in solitude; character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Unlike grownups, children have little need to deceive themselves.

People may live as much retired from the world as they please; but sooner or later, before they are aware, they will find themselves debtor or creditor to somebody.

We know accurately only when we know little; with knowledge doubt increases.

From desire I plunge to its fulfilment, where I long once more for desire.

Thou must (in commanding and winning, or serving and losing, suffering or triumphing) be either anvil or hammer.

It is in the half fools and the half wise that the greatest danger lies.

Genius develops in quiet places, character out in the full current of human life.

I make presents to the mother, but think of the daughter.

We can always redeem the man who aspires and strives.

It is said that no man is a hero to his valet. That is because a hero can be recognized only by a hero.

We accept every person in the world as that for which he gives himself out; only he must give himself out for something. We can put up with the unpleasant more easily than we can endure the insignificant.

There is nothing more frightening than ignorance in action.

And here, poor fool, with all my lore I stand no wiser than before.