Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Love does not dominate, it cultivates.

Every step of life shows much caution is required.

Nature knows no pause in progress and development and attaches her curse on all inaction.

No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it, and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

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

Unlike grown ups children have little need to deceive themselves.

Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at.

To rule is easy to govern difficult.

He who possesses art and science has religion, he who does not possess them needs religion.

Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity.

Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.

The way you see people is the way you treat them and the way you treat them is what they become.

Divide and rule the politician cries, unite and lead is watchword of the wise.

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

It is better to be deceived by one's friends than to deceive them.

Error is acceptable as long as we are young, but one must not drag it along into old age.

Every author in some way portrays himself in his works even if it be against his will.

What is important in life is life and not the result of life.

He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides or he is quite unworthy of it.

Mastery passes often for egotism.

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.

Fresh activity is the only means of overcoming adversity.

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.

The man who occupies the first place seldom plays the principal part.

To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.

In nature we never see anything isolated but everything in connection with something else which is before it beside it under it and over it.

Talent develops in quiet places character in the full current of human life.

If you must tell me your opinions tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.

The deed is everything the glory is naught.

Character in great and little things means carrying through what you feel able to do.

Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.

If children grew up according to early indications we should have nothing but geniuses.

Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose but do not serve it.

Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.

All things are only transitory.

Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

An unused life is an early death.

This is the highest wisdom that I own, freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.

The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire but my heart is all my own.

We cannot fashion our children after our desires we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.

It is not doing the thing we like to do but liking the thing we have to do that makes life blessed.

A clever man commits no minor blunders.

If a man or woman is born ten years sooner or later their whole aspect and performance shall be different.

If God had wanted me otherwise He would have created me otherwise.

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.

He who enjoys doing and enjoys what he has done is happy.

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.

What is my life if I am no longer useful to others.

To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.

Where is the man who has the strength to be true and to show himself as he is?

Everybody wants to be somebody, nobody wants to grow.

First and last what is demanded of genius is love of truth.

If a man writes a book let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.

I do not know myself and God forbid that I should.

We are never deceived, we deceive ourselves.

There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.

To create something you must be something.

A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.

Precaution is better than cure.

There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.

A useless life is an early death.

The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim.

Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it and others do just the same with their time.

Nothing is worth more than this day.

Thinking is easy acting is difficult and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

Upon the creatures we have made we are ourselves at last dependent.

I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.

Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them.

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

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous the sensible man hardly anything.

Correction does much but encouragement does more.

He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

Thinking is more interesting than knowing but less interesting than looking.

To hard necessity ones will and fancy must conform.

Life belongs to the living and he who lives must be prepared for changes.

There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.

We don't get to know people when they come to us, we must go to them to find out what they are like.

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture.

It is the strange fate of man that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.

Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.

Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.

It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.

One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.

In art the best is good enough.

Death is a commingling of eternity with time, in the death of a good man eternity is seen looking through time.

Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward, they may be beaten but they may start a winning game.

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.

What life half gives a man posterity gives entirely.

There is a courtesy of the heart, it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

I will listen to anyone's convictions but pray keep your doubts to yourself.

We usually lose today because there has been a yesterday and tomorrow is coming.

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.

Superstition is the poetry of life.

The right man is the one who seizes the moment.

Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.

When ideas fail words come in very handy.

If your treat an individual... as if he were what he ought to be and could be he will become what he ought to be and could be.

A person hears only what they understand.

For just when ideas fail a word comes in to save the situation.

Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.

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

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.

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

Objects in pictures should so be arranged as by their very position to tell their own story.

If you wish to know the mind of a man listen to his words.

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

The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.

If I love you what business is it of yours?

We always have time enough if we will but use it aright.

Science arose from poetry... when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.

One always has time enough if one will apply it well.

There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one's self on lies and fables.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.