Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Was glänzt, ist für den Augenblick geboren;<br"

"Goethe wondered at what point our instruments might be creating what we think we see out there in the world. ...his question is still a good one. Every science of observation must take care not to get lost among its own artifacts."

"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming."

"Dem Reichen übergibt der Baumeister mit dem Schlüssel des Palastes alle Bequemlichkeit und Behäbigkeit, ohne irgend etwas davon mitzugenießen. Muß sich nicht allgemach auf diese Weise die Kunst von dem Künstler entfernen, wenn das Werk wie ein ausgestattetes Kind nicht mehr auf den Vater zurückwirkt? Und wie sehr mußte die Kunst sich selbst befördern, als sie fast allein mit dem öffentlichen, mit dem, was allen und also auch dem Künstler gehörte, sich zu beschäftigen bestimmt war!"

"In the middle of the war there was Heine, there was Goethe, there was Schiller. I did posters for the German club, in the middle of the war. When I think back to how happy I was, studying German and flunking algebra, and I think what was going on for other Jewish teenagers on the other side of the world, I'm so puzzled by those dates."

"All Nine often used to come to me, I mean the Muses: But I ignored them: my girl was in my arms. Now I've left my sweetheart: and they've left me, And I roll my eyes, seeking a knife or rope. But Heaven is full of gods: You came to aid me: Greetings, Boredom, mother of the Muse."

"I feel I'm happily inspired now on Classical soil: The Past and Present speak louder, more charmingly. Here, as advised, I leaf through the works of the Ancients With busy hands, and, each day, with fresh delight. But at night Love keeps me busy another way: I become half a scholar but twice as contented. And am I not learning, studying the shape Of her lovely breasts: her hips guiding my hand?"

"Beloved, don't fret that you gave yourself so quickly! Believe me, I don't think badly or wrongly of you. The arrows of Love are various: some scratch us, And our hearts suffer for years from their slow poison. But others strong-feathered with freshly sharpened points Pierce to the marrow, and quickly inflame the blood. In the heroic ages, when gods and goddesses loved, Desire followed a look, and joy followed desire."

"Das Alter macht nicht kindisch, wie man spricht,<br"

"Is it so big a mystery what god and man and world are? No! but nobody knows how to solve it so the mystery hangs on."

"Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint."

"Ich bedauere die Menschen, welche von der Vergänglichkeit der Dinge viel Wesens machen und sich in Betrachtung irdischer Nichtigkeit verlieren. Sind wir ja eben deßhalb da, um das Vergängliche unvergänglich zu machen; das kann ja nur dadurch geschehen, wenn man beides zu schätzen weiß."

"Zwey Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust."

"Bin ich ein Gott? Mir wird so licht!"

"Es gibt Fälle, ... wo jeder Trost niederträchtig und Verzweiflung Pflicht ist."

"The child's desire to have distinctions made in his ideas grew stronger every day. Having learned that things had names, he wished to hear the name of every thing supposing that there could be nothing which his father did not know. He often teased him with his questions, and caused him to inquire concerning objects which, but for this, he would have passed without notice. Our innate tendency to pry into the origin and end of things was likewise soon developed in the boy. When he asked whence came the wind, and whither went the flame, his father for the first time truly felt the limitation of his own powers, and wished to understand how far man may venture with his thoughts, and what things he may hope ever to give account of to himself or others. The anger of the child, when he saw injustice done to any living thing, was extremely grateful to the father, as the symptom of a generous heart. Felix once struck fiercely at the cook for cutting up some pigeons. The fine impression this produced on Wilhelm was, indeed, erelong disturbed, when he found the boy unmercifully tearing sparrows in pieces and beating frogs to death. This trait reminded him of many men, who appear so scrupulously just when without passion, and witnessing the proceedings of other men. The pleasant feeling, that the boy was producing so fine and wholesome an influence on his being, was, in a short time, troubled for a moment, when our friend observed, that in truth the boy was educating him more than he the boy."

"Three things are to be looked to in a building: that it stand on the right spot; that it be securely founded; that it be successfully executed."

"Die Botschaft hör ich wohl, allein, mir fehlt der Glaube"

"Gut! Ein Mittel, ohne Geld Und Arzt und Zauberei zu haben: Begib dich gleich hinaus aufs Feld, Fang an zu hacken und zu graben, Erhalte dich und deinen Sinn In einem ganz beschraunken Kreise, Ernauhre dich mit ungemischter Speise, Leb Mit dem Vieh als Vieh, and acht es nicht fur Raub, Den Acker, den du erntest, selbst zu dungen; Das ist das beste Mittel, glaub, Auf achtzig Jahr dich zu verjungenl"

"Die Kunst an und für sich selbst ist edel; deßhalb fürchtet sich der Künstler nicht vor dem Gemeinen. Ja indem er es aufnimmt, ist es schon geadelt, und so sehen wir die größten Künstler mit Kühnheit ihr Majestätsrecht ausüben."

"Schön war ich auch, und das war mein Verderben."

"Wer Recht behalten will und hat nur eine Zunge,<br"

"Blut ist ein ganz besondrer Saft."

"Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live."

"Grau, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie,<br"

"Meine Ruh' ist hin,<br"

"Wer immer strebend sich bemüht, Den können wir erlösen."

"Der umgang mit frauen ist das element guter sitten."

"My son, whoever wishes to keep a secret, must hide from us that he possesses one. Self complaisance over the concealed destroys its concealment."

"Die Welt ist eine Glocke, die einen Riß hat: sie klappert, aber klingt nicht."

"The folly! Every man in turn would still His own peculiar notions magnify! If Islam mean submission to God’s will, May we all live in Islam, and all die."

"Theories usually result from the precipitate reasoning of an impatient mind which would like to be rid of phenomena and replaces them with images, concepts, indeed often with mere words."

"Wer nicht von dreitausend Jahren Sich weiß Rechenschaft zu geben, Bleib im Dunkeln unerfahren, Mag von Tag zu Tage leben."

"Who wants to understand the poem Must go to the land of poetry; Who wishes to understand the poet Must go to the poet's land."

"For I have been a man, and that means to have been a fighter."

"Patriotism ruins history."

"Should I not be proud, when for twenty years I have had to admit to myself that the great Newton and all the mathematicians and noble calculators along with him were involved in a decisive error with respect to the doctrine of color, and that I among millions was the only one who knew what was right in this great subject of nature?"

"I am more and more convinced that poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere and at all times in hundreds and hundreds of men. ... I therefore like to look about me in foreign nations, and advise everyone to do the same. National literature is now a rather unmeaning term; the epoch of world literature is at hand, and everyone must strive to hasten its approach."

"One must be something in order to do something."

"All poetry is supposed to be instructive but in an unnoticeable manner; it is supposed to make us aware of what it would be valuable to instruct ourselves in; we must deduce the lesson on our own, just as with life."

"I have found a paper of mine among some others in which I call architecture 'petrified music.' Really there is something in this; the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of music."

"Instruction does much, but encouragement everything."

"Wo viel Licht ist, ist starker Schatten."

"A world without love would be no world."

"Ah, how often I've cursed those foolish pages, That showed my youthful sufferings to everyone! If Werther had been my brother, and I'd killed him, His sad ghost could hardly have persecuted me more."

"I hold to faith in the divine love — which, so many years ago for a brief moment in a little corner of the earth, walked about as a man bearing the name of Jesus Christ — as the foundation on which alone my happiness rests."

"One lives but once in the world."

"So gewiß ist der allein glücklich und groß, der weder zu herrschen noch zu gehorchen braucht, um etwas zu sein!"

"Getting along with women, Knocking around with men, Having more credit than money, Thus one goes through the world."

"The artist may be well advised to keep his work to himself till it is completed, because no one can readily help him or advise him with it...but the scientist is wiser not to withhold a single finding or a single conjecture from publicity."