Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes - Page 52

• Whatever is the lot of humankind I want to taste within my deepest self. I want to seize the highest and the lowest, to load its woe and bliss upon my breast, and thus expand my single self titanically and in the end go down with all the rest.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Self, Want, Woe

  Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1985). “Faust/Bilingual”, Bantam Classics

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• If you don't feel it, you'll never achieve it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Feels, Ifs

  "Fairest Faust: A New Translation of Goethe's Faust".

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• The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honour or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Wish, Desire

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2006). “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, p.59, Penguin UK

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• The philosophers must station themselves in the middle.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Philosopher, Middle, Stations

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• Is it not enough that we cannot make one another happy, must we also rob one another of the pleasures that any heart may permit itself now and then? And name me a person who in a bad mood will be decent enough to hide it, to bear it alone, without destroying the joy around him. Is it not rather an inner dissatisfaction with our own unworthiness, a dislike of ourselves that is always associated with envy aggravated by foolish conceit? We see people happy and not made happy by us, and that is unbearable.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Heart, Names, People

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• Several classical sayings that one likes to repeat had quite a different meaning from the ones later times attributed to them.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Different, Likes, Repeats

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• How marvelous, wide and broad is my Inheritance! Time is my property, my estate is time.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Time, Inheritance, Broads

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• When an idea is wanting, a word can always be found to take its place.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Ignorance, Ideas, Found

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• Mannerism is always longing to have done, and has no true enjoyment in work. A genuine, really great talent, on the other hand, has its greatest happiness in execution.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Hands, Style, Execution

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.87, Ravenio Books

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• The smallest hair throws its shadow.
  [Ger., Das kleinste Harr wirft seinen Schatten.]

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Hair, Shadow, Trifles

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• Woman is mistress of the art of completely imbittering the life of the person on whom she depends.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Women, Mistress

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• The decline in literature indicates a decline in the nation. The two keep pace in their downward tendency.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Creativity, Two, Pace

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1853). “Goethe's Opinions on the World, Mankind, Literature, Science, and Art”, p.109

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• The history of mankind is his character.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Character, History, Historical

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• Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect, that every one should study, by all methods, to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things. ...For this reason, one ought every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Beautiful, Song, Men

  Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre bk. 5, ch. 1 (1795 - 1796)

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• The suffering may be moral or physical; and in my opinion it is just as absurd to call a man a coward who destroys himself, as to call a man a coward who dies of a malignant fever.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Suffering, Coward

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “The Sorrows of Young Werther: Top Classic of German”, p.23, 谷月社

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• Character calls forth character.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Character

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.56, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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• After all, poets shouldn't be their own interpreters and shouldn't carefully dissect their poems into everyday prose; that would mean the end of being poets. Poets send their creations into the world, it is up to the reader, the aesthetician, and the critic to determine what they wanted to say with their creations.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Mean, Poetry, Everyday

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• It is better for you to suffer an injustice than for the world to be without law. Therefore, let everyone submit to the law.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Law, Suffering, World

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• Where I cannot be moral, my power is gone.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Gone, Moral

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1893). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.76, Library of Alexandria

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• If it is the greatest truth that you seek, the plants can direct you.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Plant, Direct, Ifs

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• But the valid issue is the extent to which man knows how to form and master the material at his command.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Issues, Form

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• A true German can't stand the French,
  Yet willingly he drinks their wines.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Wine, Drink

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• It is better to be doing the most insignificant thing than to reckon even a half-hour insignificant.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Insignificant Things, Half, Hours

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• What right those who govern have to govern they don't question, they just govern. Whether the people have a right to depose them that doesn't concern them. All they are concerned with is that the people will not be tempted to depose them.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  People, Revolution, Concern

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• Nothing is true, but that which is simple.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Simple, Simplicity

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