319 quotes
A useless life is an early death.
Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787)
That is exactly the point, what we agree with leaves us inactive, but contradiction makes us productive.
Getting along with women,
Knocking around with men,
Having more credit than money,
Thus one goes through the world.
Claudine von Villa Bella (1776)
Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live.
Faust, Part 1 (1808)
You'll never attain it unless you know the feeling.
Mysteries do not as yet amount to miracles.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Translators are like busy match-makers: they sing the praises of some half-veiled beauty, and extol her charms, and arouse an irresistible longing for the original.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
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.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Everything is simpler than one can imagine, at the same time more involved than can be comprehended.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Man usually believes, if only words he hears,
That also with them goes material for thinking.
Once a man's thirty, he's already old,
He is indeed as good as dead.
It's best to kill him right away.
Faust, Part 2 (1832)
People have to become really bad before they care for nothing but mischief, and delight in it.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Long is the calm brain active in creation;
Time only strengthens the fine fermentation.
A noble soul alone can noble souls attract;
And knows alone, as ye, to hold them.
When toward the Devil's House we tread,
Woman's a thousand steps ahead.
Yet he who grasps the moment's gift,
He is the proper man.
When I err every one can see it, but not when I lie.
There is strong shadow where there is much light.
We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.