Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Modern poets put a lot of water into their ink.

The desire to explain what is simple by what is complex, what is easy by what is difficult, is a calamity affecting the whole body of science, known, it is true, to men of insight, but not generally admitted.

Encourage the beautiful, the useful will take care of itself.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

Talent develops in tranquility, character in the full current of human life.

Once I blazed across the sky,
Leaving trails of flame;
I fell to earth, and here I lie -
Who'll help me up again?
-A Shooting Star

Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis.

It is the most foolish of all errors for young people of good intelligence to imagine that they will forfeit their originality if they acknowledge truth already acknowledged by others.

Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one.

He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself; it is a child of solitude.

When we take people,’ thou wouldst say, ‘merely as they are, we make them worse; when we treat them as if they were what they should be, we improve them as far as they can be improved.’

Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.

Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint.

At the moment of commitment the entire universe conspires to assist you.