Quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nothing is more consonant with Nature than that she puts into operation in the smallest detail that which she intends as a whole.

There is no permanence in doubt; it incites the mind to closer inquiry and experiment, from which, if rightly managed, certainty proceeds, and in this alone can man find thorough satisfaction.

Whether one show one's self a man of genius in science or compose a song, the only point is, whether the thought, the discovery, the deed, is living and can live on.

Normally, the sciences distance themselves from life and the return to it via a detour.

Most man only care for science so far as they get a living by it, and that they worship even error when it affords them a subsistence.

Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at.

Life is too short to drink bad wine.

Everything is both simpler than we can imagine and more entangled than we can conceive.

He is the happiest man who can see the connection between the end and the beginning of life.

Let no one be like another, yet everyone like the highest. How is this done? Be each one perfect in himself.

Let no one be ashamed to say yes today if yesterday he said no. Or to say no today if yesterday he said yes. For that is life. Never to have changed-what a pitiable thing of which to boast!

Is it life, I ask, is it even prudence, To bore thyself and bore the students?

Night is the other half of life, and the better half.

What is my life if I am no longer useful to others.

He who is and remains true to himself and to others has the most attractive quality of the greatest talent.

The aim of living is life itself.

Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.

Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.

Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.

There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one's self on lies and fables.

If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.

As soon as you are in a social setting, you better take away the key to the lock of your heart and pocket it; those who leave thekey in the lock are fools.