319 quotes
My son, whoever wishes to keep a secret, must hide from us that he possesses one. Self complaisance over the concealed destroys its concealment.
Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Journeyman Years) (1821)
The trouble is small, the fun is great.
What a mighty spirit in a narrow bosom.
Too rigid scruples are concealed pride.
If some people hadn't felt obliged to repeat what is untrue simply because they had at one point maintained it, they would have turned into quite different people.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
The smallest hair throws its shadow.
Thus at Time's humming loom I ply.
The present is a powerful deity.
Sing it not in mournful numbers.
Everything excellent limits us momentarily because we feel unable to match up to it; only insofar as we subsequently accept it into our own culture, absorb it as belonging to our own mental and temperamental powers, do we come to love and value it.
Die Kunst ist lang, das Leben kurz, das Urteil schwierig, die Gelegenheit flüchtig.
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786)
My peace is gone, my heart is heavy.
The Eternal Feminine draws us on.
Faust, Part 2 (1832)
A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows on rows of natural objects, classified with name and form.
Elective Affinities (1809)
"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."
As great, everlasting,
Adamantine laws
Dictate, we must all
Complete the cycles
Of our existence.
There was a king of Thule,
Was faithful till the grave,
To whom his mistress dying,
A golden goblet gave.
You ask which form of government is the best? Whichever teaches us to govern ourselves.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Whoever intends to have the right, if but his tongue be clever,<br
Faust, Part 1 (1808)
What dazzles, for the Moment spends its spirit:<br
Faust, Part 1 (1808)