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Quotes from Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

1749–1832 Germany

← All quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

11 quotes

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786)

I sing as the bird sings
That lives in the boughs.

Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786)

What's it to you if I love you?

Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786)

Nothing venture, nothing gain.
Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,
Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours
Weeping upon his bed has sate,
He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers.

Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786)

Who science has and art
He has religion too
Who neither of them owns
Religion is his due.

Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786)

To know of someone here and there whom we accord with, who is living on with us, even in silence — this makes our earthly ball a peopled garden.

Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786)

Die Kunst ist lang, das Leben kurz, das Urteil schwierig, die Gelegenheit flüchtig.

Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786)

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone here and there who thinks and feels with us, and though distant, is close to us in spirit — this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.

Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786)

Not to keep from error, is the duty of the educator of men, but to guide the erring one, even to let him swill his error out of full cups — that is the wisdom of teachers. Whoever merely tastes of his error, will keep house with it for a long time, ... but whoever drains it completely will have to get to know it.

Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786)

Knowst thou the land where the lemon trees bloom,
Where the gold orange glows in the deep thicket's gloom,
Where a wind ever soft from the blue heaven blows,
And the groves are of laurel and myrtle and rose?

Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786)

‘When we take people,’ thou wouldst say, ‘merely as they are, we make them worse; when we treat them as if they were what they should be, we improve them as far as they can be improved.’

Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.