Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832)
German novelist, dramatist, poet, humanist, scientist, philosopher, and for ten years chief minister of state at Weimar.
Ich singe, wie der Vogel singt
Der in den Zweigen wohnet.
Meine Ruh' ist hin,
Mein Herz ist schwer.
Piety is not an end but a means to attain ... the highest degree of culture. This is why ... those who parade piety as a purpose and an aim mostly turn into hypocrites
We can't form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.
Schön war ich auch, und das war mein Verderben.
Only mankind
Can do the impossible:
He can distinguish,
He chooses and judges,
He can give permanence
To the moment.
Man sagt: „Studire, Künstler, die Natur!” Es ist aber keine Kleinigkeit, aus dem Gemeinen das Edle, aus der Unform das Schöne zu entwickeln.
Tell me you stones, O speak, you towering palaces!
Streets, say a word! Spirit of this place, are you dumb?
All things are alive in your sacred walls
Eternal Rome, it's only for me all is still.
One is never satisfied with a portrait of a person that one knows.
Should I not be proud, when for twenty years I have had to admit to myself that the great Newton and all the mathematicians and noble calculators along with him were involved in a decisive error with respect to the doctrine of color, and that I among millions was the only one who knew what was right in this great subject of nature?
When you see some evil you proceed to immediate action, you make an immediate attack to cure the symptom.
Wer nichts wagt, gerwinnt nichts.
Wer nie sein Brod mit Tränen ass,
Wer nie die kummervollen Nächte
Auf seinem Bette weinend sass,
Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte.
What's it to you if I love you?
Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben der täglich sie erobern muss.
Was glänzt, ist für den Augenblick geboren;
das Echte bleibt der Nachwelt unverloren.
The desire to explain what is simple by what is complex, what is easy by what is difficult, is a calamity .
Wo viel Licht ist, ist auch viel Schatten.
[…] misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less frequent.
Once a man's thirty, he's already old,
He is indeed as good as dead.
It's best to kill him right away.
No one would talk much in society, if he knew how often he misunderstands others.