Quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Love and desire are the spiritís wings to great deeds.

To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.

When a wife has a good husband it is easily seen in her face.

Every situation, every moment -- is of infinite worth; for it is the representative of a whole eternity.

Great necessity elevates man, petty necessity casts him down

Where there is much light, the shadows are deepest.

Confronted by outstanding merit, there is no way of saving one's ego except by love

The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.

Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

Man can only endure a certain degree of unhappiness; what is beyond that either annihilates him or passes by him and leaves him apathetic

"A vain man can never be utterly ruthless: he wants to win applause and therefore he accommodates himself to others"

One can be very happy without demanding that others agree with them.

A collection of anecdotes and maxims is the greatest of treasures for the man of the world, for he knows how to intersperse conversation with the former in fit places, and to recollect the latter on proper occasions.

It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.

I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wishes. The greater part of all mischief in the world arises from the fact that men do not sufficiently understand their own aims. They have undertaken to build a tower, and spend no more labor on the foundation than would be necessary to erect a hut.

Of freedom and of life he only is deservingWho every day must conquer them anew.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

Without haste, but without rest.

The greatest happiness for the thinking man is to have fathomed the fathomable, and to quietly revere the unfathomable.

Superstition is the poetry of life.

There is no surer method of evading the world than by following Art, and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by Art.

Since time is not a person we can overtake when he is past, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.

A correct answer is like an affectionate kiss.