Quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Belief is not the beginning of knowledge - it is the end.

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

Treat a person as they are, they will remain so. Treat a person the way that person can be and is capable of being and that person will become as he or she can be and should be.

Hell begins the day that God grants you the vision to see all that you could have done, should have done, and would have done, but did not do.

To have a positive religion is not necessary. To be in harmony with yourself and the universe is what counts, and this is possible without positive and specific formulation in words.

If you want to reach the infinite, then explore every aspect of the finite.

He who has art and science also has religion, but those who do not have them better have religion.

Art is based on a strong sentiment of religion,--on a profound and mighty earnestness; hence it is so prone to co-operate with religion.

Since I have heard often enough that everyone in the end has his own religion, nothing seemed more natural to me than to fashion my own.

I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wants.

Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are.

The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.

Classicism is health, romanticisim is sickness.

The greater the knowledge, the greater the doubt.

Never by reflection, but only by doing is self- knowledge possible to one.

Mediocrity has no greater consolation than in the thought that genius is not immortal.

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

What is not fully understood is not possessed.

With knowledge grows doubt.

The real scholar learns how to evolve the unknown from the known, and draws near the master.

The history of knowledge is a great fugue in which the voices of the nations one after the other emerge.

With knowledge comes more doubt.

Self knowledge is best learned not by contemplation, but by action.

In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm... in the real world all rests on perseverance.