"The style of an author is a faithful copy of his mind."
Read quote
3 likes
Quote collection
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quotes (page 67 of 88)
1.7K quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Every man must form himself as a particular being, seeking, however, to attain that general idea of which all mankind are constituents."
Read quote
3 likes
"Does not man lack the force at the very point where he needs it most? And when he soars upward in joy, or sinks down in suffering, is not checked in both, is he not returned again to the dull, cold sphere of awareness, just when he was longing to lose himself in the fullness of the infinite."
Read quote
3 likes
"In happy ignorance, I sighed for a world I did not know, where I hoped to find every pleasure and enjoyment which my heart could desire; and now, on my return from that wide world... how many disappointed hopes and unsuccessful plans have I brought back!"
Read quote
3 likes
"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."
Read quote
3 likes
"Basic characteristics of an individual organism: to divide, to unite, to merge into the universal, to abide in the particular, to transform itself, to define itself, and as living things tend to appear under a thousand conditions, to arise and vanish, to solidify and melt, to freeze and flow, to expand and contract. Since these effects occur together, any or all may occur at the same moment."
Read quote
3 likes
"I have learned much from disease which life could have never taught me anywhere else."
Read quote
3 likes
"Everything factual is, in a sense, theory. The blue of the sky exhibits the basic laws of chromatics. There is no sense in looking for something behind phenomena: they are theory."
Read quote
3 likes
"The loss of a much-prized treasure is only half felt when we have not regarded its tenure as secure."
Read quote
3 likes
"Most men, even the most accomplished, are of limited faculties; every one sets a value on certain qualities in himself and others: these alone he is willing to favour, these alone will he have cultivated."
Read quote
3 likes
"The words you've bandied are sufficient; 'Tis deeds that I prefer to see. [Ger., Der Worte sind genug gewechselt, Lasst mich auch endlich Thaten sehn.]"
Read quote
3 likes
"All professional men are handicapped by not being allowed to ignore things which are useless."
Read quote
3 likes
"No one should be rich except those who understand it."
Read quote
3 likes
"Each traveler should know what he has to see, and what properly belongs to him, on a journey."
Read quote
3 likes
"Art is in itself noble; that is why the artist has no fear of what is common. This, indeed, is already ennobled when he takes it up."
Read quote
3 likes
"What we don't understand we don't possess."
Read quote
3 likes
"It is with art as with love: How can a man of the world,with all his distractions, keep the inwardness which an artist must possess if he hopes to attain perfection? That inwardness which the spectator must share if he is to understand the work as the artist wishes and hopes... Believe me, talents are like virtues; either you must love them for their own sake or renounce them altogether. And they are only recognized and rewarded when we have practised them in secret, like a dangerous mystery.""
Read quote
3 likes
"The best pleasures of this world are not quite true."
Read quote
3 likes
"The experiences show us just as we are; they make us see our own defects."
Read quote
3 likes
"Limitation of aims is the mother of wisdom and the secret of achievement."
Read quote
3 likes