Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes - Page 54

• The loss of a much-prized treasure is only half felt when we have not regarded its tenure as secure.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Loss, Half, Treasure

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• A vain man can never be utterly ruthless: he wants to win applause and therefore he accommodates himself to others

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Winning, Men, Want

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• Too rigid scruples are concealed pride.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Pride, Scruples, Concealed

  "Iphigenia in Tauris". Play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, IV. 4. 120, April 6, 1779.

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• The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Art, Giving Up

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.3535, Delphi Classics

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• The unnatural, that too is natural.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Wisdom, Nature, Sexuality

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• 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.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Science, Together

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• 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.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Joy, Suffering

  Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1990). “Sammlung”, Burns & Oates

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• Every man must form himself as a particular being, seeking, however, to attain that general idea of which all mankind are constituents.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Character, Men, Ideas

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (1949). “Words of Goethe: being the conversations of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe”

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• The style of an author is a faithful copy of his mind.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Faithful, Style, Mind

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• People can only live with their equals, and not even with them; for in the long run they cannot tolerate that someone is their equal.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Running, Equality, Long

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• We can most safely achieve truly universal tolerance when we respect that which is characteristic in the individual and in nations, clinging, though, to the conviction that the truly meritorious is unique by belonging to all of mankind.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Unique, Tolerance, Individual

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• Plants and flowers of the commonest kind can form a pleasing diary, because nothing which calls back to us the remembrance of a happy moment can be insignificant.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Flower, Remembrance, Diaries

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• 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.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Sky, Blue, Law

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• I am certain that I have been here as I am now a thousand times before, and I hope to return a thousand times.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Return, Reincarnation, Certain

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• Only the soul that loves is happy

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Love Is, Soul

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• Beautiful is greater than Good, for it includes the Good.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Beauty, Beautiful, Greater

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• 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.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Giving, World, Accepting

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.770, Delphi Classics

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• One's roused by this, another finds that fit: Each loves the play for what he brings to it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Play, Fit, Theater

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1984). “Faust”

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• English plays, Atrocious in content, Absurd in form, Objectionable in action, Execrable EnglishTheatre.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Play, Action, Absurd

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• As all Nature's thousands changes But one changeless God proclaim; So in Art's wide kingdom ranges One sole meaning still the same: This is Truth, eternal Reason, Which from Beauty takes its dress, And serene through time and season Stands aye in loveliness.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Dresses, Kingdoms

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1947). “Travel years”

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• Thou tremblest before anticipated ills, and still bemoanest what thou never losest.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Anticipation, Stills

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• To venture an opinion is like moving a piece at chess: it may be taken, but it forms the beginning of a game that is won.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Taken, Moving, Games

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.72, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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• For to give is the business of the rich.
  [Lat., Denn Geben ist Sache des Reichen.]

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Giving, Rich

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• Thou art in the end what thou art. Put on wigs with millions of curls, set thy foot upon ell-high rocks. Thou abidest ever--what thou art.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Rocks, Feet

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• When we see the many grave-stones which have fallen in, which have been defaced by the footsteps of the congregation, which lie buried under the ruins of the churches, that have themselves crumbled together over them; we may fancy the life after death to be as a second life, into which man enters in the figure, or the picture or the inscription, and lives longer there than when he was really alive. But this figure also, this second existence, dies out too, sooner or later. Time will not allow himself to be cheated of his rights with the monuments of men or with themselves.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lying, Men, Rights

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