Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

“Oh my, but art is long and our life is fleeting.”

“Men’s wretchedness in soothe I so deplore, Not even I would plague the sorry creatures more.”

“E’en hell hath its peculiar laws.”

“Two souls live in me, alas, Irreconcilable with one another.”

“Happy is he who has the pure truth in him. He will regret no sacrifice that keeps it.”

“Stop making love to your misery, It eats away at you like a vulture!

“When I leave here, let come what must. What do I care about it now, if hereafter men hate or love, or if in those other spheres there be an Above or a Below?”

“While still man strives, still he must err.”

“Who strives always to the utmost, for him there is salvation”

“That which issues from the heart alone, Will bend the hearts of others to your own.”

“Forbear to trifle longer with thy grief, Which, vulture-like, consumes thee in this den.”

“Methinks, by most, ‘twill be confess’d That Death is never quite a welcome guest.”

“Fill your heart to overflowing, and when you feel profoundest bliss, then call it what you will: Good fortune! Heart! Love! or God! I have no name for it! Feeling is all; the name is sound and smoke, beclouding Heaven’s glow.”

“Body and soul ... fit so well together yet they are eternally in contention.”

“Dear friend, all theory is gray, And green the golden tree of life.”

“When in his study pent the whole year through, Man views the world, as through an optic glass, On a chance holiday, and scarcely then, How by persuasion can he govern men?”

“What a man knows not, he to use requires, And what he knows, he cannot use for good.”

“Mothers! That word’s like a blow! Why am I so affected by it?”

“In the end, you are exactly--what you are. Put on a wig with a million curls, put the highest heeled boots on your feet, yet you remain in the end just what you are.”

“There’s nothing wise and nothing silly Wasn’t thought of long ago. ”