Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832)
German novelist, dramatist, poet, humanist, scientist, philosopher, and for ten years chief minister of state at Weimar.
Beloved, don't fret that you gave yourself so quickly!
Believe me, I don't think badly or wrongly of you.
The arrows of Love are various: some scratch us,
And our hearts suffer for years from their slow poison.
But others strong-feathered with freshly sharpened points
Pierce to the marrow, and quickly inflame the blood.
In the heroic ages, when gods and goddesses loved,
Desire followed a look, and joy followed desire.
In limitations he first shows himself the master,
And the law can only bring us freedom.
If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.
Die Wissenschaft hilft uns vor allem, daß sie das Staunen, wozu wir von Natur berufen find. Die Wissenschaft hilft uns vor allem, daß sie das Staunen, wozu wir von Natur berufen find.
A useless life is an early death.
The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through all eternity.
The deed is everything, the glory nothing.
Der thörigste von allen Irrthümern ist, wenn junge gute Köpfe glauben, ihre Originalität zu verlieren, indem sie das Wahre anerkennen, was von andern schon anerkannt worden.
Nun aber wird der einsichtige Leser, welcher fähig ist, zwischen diese Zeilen hineinzulesen, was nicht geschrieben steht, aber angedeutet ist, sich eine Ahnung der ernsten Gefühle gewinnen, mit welchen ich damals Emmendingen betrat. www.zeno.org
The greatest happiness for the thinking man is to have fathomed the fathomable, and to quietly revere the unfathomable.
Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind;
Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm,
Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.
Wer immer strebend sich bemüht,
Den können wir erlösen.
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.
The spirits that I summoned up
I now can't rid myself of.
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.
[…] misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less frequent.
One often says to oneself … that one ought to avoid having too many different businesses, to avoid becoming a jack-of-all-trades, and that the older one gets, the more one ought to avoid entering into new business. But … the very fact of growing older means taking up a new business; all our circumstances change, and we must either stop doing anything at all or else willing and consciously take on the new role we have to play on life’s stage.
Blut ist ein ganz besondrer Saft.
Man will become more clever and sagacious, but not better, happier or showing more resolute wisdom; or at least, only at periods.