319 quotes
The clearest indication of character is what people find laughable.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Character in important and less important matters is that a man should steadily pursue whatever course he feels to be within his capacity.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Behavior is a mirror in which everyone displays his own image.
For I have been a man, and that means to have been a fighter.
Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality.
a conversation with a German historian (1813)
Everything in the world may be endured, except only a succession of prosperous days.
Man, be he who he may, experiences a last piece of good fortune and a last day.
As a man is, so is his God; therefore God was so often an object of mockery.
We know accurately only when we know little; with knowledge doubt increases.
Sprüche in Prosa. Quote reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)
Beloved brother, let us not forget that man can never get away from himself.
There are men who never err, because they never propose anything rational.
The highest happiness, the purest joys of life, wear out at last.
In so great a danger the faintest hope should be considered.
Art is in itself noble; that is why the artist has no fear of what is common. This, indeed, is already ennobled when he takes it up.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Of all peoples the Greeks have dreamt the dream of life the best.
If you start to think about your physical or moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.
Proverbs in Prose (1819)
We can't form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.
Hermann und Dorothea (1797)
One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is the intermixing of different genres.
Propylaea (1798)
What wise or stupid thing can man conceive
That was not thought of in ages long ago?
Faust, Part 2 (1832)
One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.