319 quotes
Life teaches us to be less harsh with ourselves and with others.
Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787)
Every step of life shows much caution is required.
Pleasure and love are the pinions of great deeds.
Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787)
Seeking with the soul the land of the Greeks.
Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787)
I love those who yearn for the impossible.
Faust, Part 2 (1832)
Who can think wise or stupid things at all that were not thought already in the past.
Girls we love for what they are;
Young men for what they promise to be.
We always hope, and in all things it is better to hope than to despair.
The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.
Who strives always to the utmost,
For him there is salvation.
Faust, Part 2 (1832)
America, you have it better than our continent, the old one.
Wendts Musen-Almanach (1831)
Gifts come from above in their own peculiar forms.
The universal subjugator, the commonplace.
Taschenbuch für Damen auf das Jahr (1806)
The eternal feminine doth draw us upward.
Sin writes histories, goodness is silent.
The fate of the architect is the strangest of all. How often he expends his whole soul, his whole heart and passion, to produce buildings into which he himself may never enter.
Elective Affinities (1809)
Everything that liberates our mind without at the same time imparting self-control is pernicious.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
No one would talk much in society, if he knew how often he misunderstands others.
Elective Affinities (1809)
I come more and more to the conclusion that one must take the side of the minority which is always the more intelligent one.
A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.