Quotes from Goethe

Love does not dominate; it cultivates.

The greatest evil that can befall man is that he should come to think ill of himself.

Night is the other half of life, and the better half.

The rich want good wine, the poor, plenty of wine.

Misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than malice and wickedness.

It is ever true that he who does nothing for others, does nothing for himself.

When we treat man as he is we make him worse than he is. When we treat him as if he already was what he potentially could be We make him what he should be.

If the whole world I once could see On free soil stand, with the people free Then to the moment might I say, Linger awhile. . .so fair thou art.

I hate everything that merely instructs me without augmenting or directly invigorating my activity

I am a part of the part that at first was all, part of the darkness that gave birth to the light, that supercilious light which now disputes with Mother Night her ancient rank and space, and yet cannot succeed; no matter how it struggles, it sticks to matter and can't get free. Light flows from substance, makes it beautiful...

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.

If nature is your teacher, your soul will awaken.

What you inherit from your father must first be earned before it's yours.

There are no means of safety against superior qualities of another person but to love him.

We all walk in mysteries. We are surrounded by an atmosphere about which we still know nothing at all.

What is hardest of all? That which seems most simple: to see with your eyes what is before your eyes.

Then indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting over lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

We're only really thinking when we can't think out fully what we are really thinking about!

Insofar as he makes use of his healthy senses, man himself is the best and most exact scientific instrument possible. The greatest misfortune of modern physics is that its experiments have been set apart from man, as it were, physics refuses to recognize nature in anything not shown by artificial instruments, and even uses this as a measure of its accomplishments.

Publishers are all cohorts of the devil; there must be a special hell for them somewhere.

What's done is yet to come.

Now I find my good men Are gathered in the night To wait in silence, not to sleep And the glorious word of liberty They whisper and murmur Till in unaccustomed strangeness On the steps of our temper Once again in delight they cry Freedom! Freedom!

Things unused burden and beset.

Beauty is everywhere a very welcome guest.