Quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To live as one likes is plebian the noble man aspires to order and law.

Nature understands no jesting. She is always true, always serious, always severe. She is always right, and the errors are always those of man.

A man may twist as he pleases, and do what he pleases, but he inevitably comes back to the track to which nature has destined him.

He only fears men who does not know them, and he who avoids them will soon misjudge them.

Men in a state of nature, uncivilized nations, children, have a great fondness for colors in their utmost brightness, and especially for yellow-red.

In society every man is taken for what he gives himself out to be; but he must give himself out to be something. Better to be slightly disagreeable than altogether insignificant.

The phrases that men hear or repeat continually, end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence.

First let a man teach himself, and then he will be taught by others.

The greatest piece of folly is that every man thinks himself compelled to hand down what people think they have known.

Man would not be the finest creature in the world if he were not too fine for it.

Noble be man, helpful and good!

It is natural to man to regard himself as the final cause of creation.

The few of understanding, vision rare, Who veiled not from the herd their hearts, but tried, Poor generous fools, to lay their feelings bare, Them have men always burnt and crucified.

He is a man whom it is impossible to please, because he is never pleased with himself.

To a valet no man is a hero. [Ger., Es gibt fur den Kammerdiener keiner Helden.]

Man usually believes, if only words he hears, That also with them goes material for thinking. [Ger., Gewohnlich glaubt der Mensch, wenn er nur Worte hort, Es musse sich dabei doch auch was denken.]

The ground that a good man treads is hallowed.

Are we not also married to conscience which we would love to get rid of often enough since it is more bothersome than a man or a woman ever could become?

The man who occupies the first place seldom plays the principal part.

The highest goal that man can achieve is amazement.

Where a man has a passion for meditating without the capacity of thinking, a particular idea fixes itself fast, and soon creates a mental disease.

Great necessity elevates man, petty necessity casts him down

As a man is, so is his God; therefore God was so often an object of mockery. [Ger., Wie einer ist, so ist sein Gott, Darum ward Gott so oft zu Spott.]

Beloved brother, let us not forget that man can never get away from himself. [Ger., Lass uns, geliebter Bruder, nicht vergessen, Dass von sich selbst der Mensch nicht scheiden kann.]