319 quotes
For what one has in black and white,
One can carry home in comfort.
He who does not speak foreign languages knows nothing about his own.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Whoever would understand the poet
Must go into the poet's country.
With little art, clear wit and sense
Suggest their own delivery.
Divide and command, a wise maxim;
Unite and guide, a better.
Association with women is the basic element of good manners.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Nothing is more frightful than to see ignorance in action.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
What is Classical is healthy; what is Romantic is sick.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
I too was fair, and that was my undoing.
Nothing is worse than active ignorance.
All perishable is but an allegory.
Faust, Part 2 (1832)
In art the best is good enough.
What's it to you if I love you?
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786)
There's nothing clever that hasn't been thought of before — you've just got to try to think it all over again.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Two souls, alas! reside within my breast, and each withdraws from and repels its brother.
Rest is not quitting
This busy career;
Rest is the fitting
Of self to its sphere.
Men who give way easily to tears are good. I have nothing to do with those who hearts are dry and who eyes are dry!
Elective Affinities (1809)
The spirits that I summoned up
I now can't rid myself of.
But what is your duty? What the day demands.
When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one's hands full just to be able to remove their trash.