Quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It matters little whether a man be mathematically or philologically or artistically cultivated, so he be but cultivated.

Beware of her fair hair, for she excels All women in the magic of her locks; And when she winds them round a young man's neck, She will not ever set him free again.

As in Rome there is, apart from the Romans, a population of statues, so apart from this real world there is a world of illusion, almost more potent, in which most men live.

A wife is a gift bestowed upon a man to reconcile him to the loss of paradise.

You accuse a woman of wavering affections, but don't blame her; she is just looking for a consistent man.

Is not the core of nature in the heart of man?

When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.

A man is not little when he finds it difficult to cope with circumstances, but when circumstances overmaster him.

All men would be masters of others, and no man is lord of himself.

The best fortune that can fall to a man is that which corrects his defects and makes up for his failings.

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.

We are accustomed to see men deride what they do not understand, and snarl at the good and beautiful because it lies beyond their sympathies

If man thinks about his physical or moral state he usually discovers that he is ill.

There is no better deliverance from the world than through art, and a man can form no surer bond with it.

The follies of the wise man are known to himself, but hidden from the world.

A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.

Few are open to conviction, but the majority of men are open to persuasion

Judge a man's character by what he finds ridiculous.

What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.

The finished man, you know, is difficult to please; a growing mind will ever show you gratitude. --Faust 1, lines 182-3

Habit is a man's sole comfort. We dislike doing without even unpleasant things to which we have become accustomed.

A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is also ignorant of his own language.

A man doesn't learn to understand anything unless he loves it.

Nothing tells more about the character of a man than the things he makes fun of.