Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“In limitations he first shows himself the master,And the law can only bring us freedom.”

“One never goes so far as when one doesn't know where one is going.”

“When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one's hands full just to be able to remove their trash.”

“Instruction does much, but encouragement everything.”

“Wo viel Licht ist, ist starker Schatten.”

“So gewiß ist der allein glücklich und groß, der weder zu herrschen noch zu gehorchen braucht, um etwas zu sein!”

“I hold to faith in the divine love — which, so many years ago for a brief moment in a little corner of the earth, walked about as a man bearing the name of Jesus Christ — as the foundation on which alone my happiness rests.”

“One lives but once in the world.”

“Getting along with women, Knocking around with men, Having more credit than money, Thus one goes through the world.”

“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.”

“Noble be man, Helpful and good! For that alone Sets hims apart From every other creature On earth.”

“As great, everlasting, Adamantine laws Dictate, we must all Complete the cycles Of our existence.”

“Only mankind Can do the impossible: He can distinguish, He chooses and judges, He can give permanence To the moment.”

“Let the noble man Be generous and good, Tirelessly achieving What is just and useful: Let him be a model For those beings whom he surmises.”

“In der Kunst ist das Beste gut genug.”

“A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.”

“A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world's torrent.”

“Untersuchen was ist, und nicht was behagt”

“Die Liebe herrscht nicht, aber sie bildet; und das ist mehr!”

“We can't form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.”

“The spirits that I summoned upI now can't rid myself of.”

“One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is the intermixing of different genres.”

“The true, prescriptive artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless artist, following blind instinct, after an appearance of naturalness. The one leads to the highest peaks of art, the other to its lowest depths.”

“I have often felt a bitter sorrow at the thought of the German people, which is so estimable in the individual and so wretched in the generality. A comparison of the German people with other peoples arouses a painful feeling, which I try to overcome in every possible way.”

“Patriotism ruins history.”

“Who wants to understand the poemMust go to the land of poetry;Who wishes to understand the poetMust go to the poet's land.”

“For I have been a man, and that means to have been a fighter.”

“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?”

“All poetry is supposed to be instructive but in an unnoticeable manner; it is supposed to make us aware of what it would be valuable to instruct ourselves in; we must deduce the lesson on our own, just as with life.”

“One must be something in order to do something.”