Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Tell me with whom you consort and I will tell you who you are; if I know how you spend your time, then I know what might become of you.

I am amazed to see how deliberately I have entangled myself step by step. To have seen my position so clearly, and yet to have acted so like a child!

A burgher may acquire merit; by excessive efforts he may even educate his mind; but his personal qualities are lost, or worse than lost, let him struggle as he will. Since the nobleman, frequenting the society of the most polished, is compelled to give himself a polished manner; since this manner, neither door nor gate being shut against him, grows at last an unconstrained one; since, in court or camp, his figure, his person, are a part of his possessions, and it may be the most necessary part, — he has reason enough to put some value on them, and to show that he puts some.

If I love you, what business is it of yours?

You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it never
Rises from the soul, and sways
The heart of every single hearer,
With deepest power, in simple ways.
You’ll sit forever, gluing things together,
Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps,
Blowing on a miserable fire,
Made from your heap of dying ash.
Let apes and children praise your art,
If their admiration’s to your taste,
But you’ll never speak from heart to heart,
Unless it rises up from your heart’s space.

Do you wish to roam farther and farther?
See the good that lies so near.
Just learn how to capture your luck,
for your luck is always there.

"schade dass die Natur nur einen Mensch aus dir schuf / denn zum wurdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff"
(loose translation: nature, alas, made only one being out of you although there was material for a good man & a rogue)

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.

A useless life is an early death.

Dem Reichen übergibt der Baumeister mit dem Schlüssel des Palastes alle Bequemlichkeit und Behäbigkeit, ohne irgend etwas davon mitzugenießen. Muß sich nicht allgemach auf diese Weise die Kunst von dem Künstler entfernen, wenn das Werk wie ein ausgestattetes Kind nicht mehr auf den Vater zurückwirkt? Und wie sehr mußte die Kunst sich selbst befördern, als sie fast allein mit dem öffentlichen, mit dem, was allen und also auch dem Künstler gehörte, sich zu beschäftigen bestimmt war!

Reden ist uns ein Bedürfnis, Zuhören ist eine Kunst.