Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

German dramatist, novelist, poet, & scientist (1749 - 1832)

Everything in the world may be endured except continued prosperity.

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

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.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable.

Oh God, how do the world and heavens confine themselves, when our hearts tremble in their own barriers!

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.

More light! Give me more light!

Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language, and forthwith it is something entirely different.

Treat people as if they were what they should be, and you help them become what they are capable of becoming.

Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but is sure to repent of every ill-judged outlay.

Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.

If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain as he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought and could be.

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.

I love the deep quiet in which I live and grow against the world and harvest what they cannot take from me by fire or sword.

A man can stand anything except a succession of ordinary days.