 Whoever espies human beauty can be afflicted by no ill: he feels himself in accord with himself and with the world.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Elective Affinities (1809)
If you take a man as he is, you make him worse. If you take a man as he can be, you make him better.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Few people have the imagination for reality.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
No man deserves his freedom or his life who does not daily win them anew
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Faust
There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Men are joined by conviction, sundered by opinion.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Rest not! Life is sweeping by; go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When Nature forces lengths of thread unending/ In careless whirling on the spindle round,/ When all Life's inharmonic throngs unblending/ In sullen, harsh confusion sound,/ Who parts the changeless series of creation,/ That each, enlivened, moves in rhythmic time?/ Who summons each to join the general ordination,/ In consecrated, noble harmonies to chime?/ Who bids the storm with raging passion lower?/ The sunset with a solemn meaning glow?/ Who scatters Springtime's every lovely flower/ Along the pathway where his love may go?/ Who twines the verdant leaves, unmeaning, slighted,/ Into a wreath of honor, meed of every field?/ Who makes Olympus sure, the gods united?/ The power of Man the Poet has revealed!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Faust
By no means! For this earthly sphere / Affords a place for great deeds ever. / Astounding things shall happen here. / I feel the strength for bold endeavour.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Faust
The yonder is to me a trifling matter. / Should you this world to ruins shatter, / The other then may rise, its place to fill. / 'Tis from this Earth my pleasure springs, / And this sun shines upon my sufferings; / When once I separate me from these things, / Let happen then what can and will. / And furthermore I've no desire to hear / Whether in future too men hate and love, / And whether too in yonder sphere, / There is an under or above.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Faust
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He alone is great and happy who requires neither to command nor to obey in order to secure his being of some importance in the world.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
'Tis true that I know much, but I would like to know everything.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
That which moves not forward, goes backward.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/goethe2.html
To be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/goethe2.html
|
