Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.

Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it; and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.

If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.

Every spoken word arouses our self-will.

The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.

Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at.

Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.

One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.