Quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.

Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.

The coward only threatens when he is safe.

Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.

The day is of infinite length for him who knows how to appreciate and use it.

Devote each day to the object then in time and every evening will find something done.

We must not take the faults of our youth with us into old age, for age brings along its own defects.

It is always a sign of an unproductive time when it concerns itself with petty and technical aspects [in philology], and likewiseit is a sign of an unproductive person to pursue such trifles.

Austere perseverance, hash and continuous... rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistible greater with time.

Method will teach you to win time.

What do people mean when they talk about unhappiness? It is not so much unhappiness as impatience that from time to time possesses men, and then they choose to call themselves miserable.

If we could do away with death, we wouldn't object; to do away with capital punishment will be more difficult. Were that to happen, we would reinstate it from time to time.

Of all thieves, fools are the worst; they rob you of time and temper.

When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one's hands full just to be able to remove their trash.

Make the most of time, it flies away so fast; yet method will teach you to win time.

Tolerance comes of age. I see no fault committed that I myself could not have committed at some time or other.

My inheritance how lordly wide and fair; Time is my fair seed-field, to Time I'm heir.

How marvelous, wide and broad is my Inheritance! Time is my property, my estate is time.

Faust: Who holds the devil, let him hold him well, He hardly will be caught a second time.

It is only necessary to grow old to become more charitable and even indulgent. I see no fault committed by others that I have not committed myself.

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

Time flies, and what is past is done.

All of us have life; few of us have an idea of it.

The rainbow mirrors human aims and action. Think, and more clearly wilt thou grasp it, seeing Life is but light in many-hued reflection.