64 Quotes by Goethe

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

If the whole world I once could seeOn free soil stand, with the people freeThen to the moment might I say,Linger awhile. . .so fair thou art.

If the artists are so rich,” replied Charlotte, “then tell me how it is that they are never able to escape from little obelisks, dwarf pillars, and urns for ashes? Instead of your thousand forms of which you boast, I have never seen anything but a thousand repetitions.

It is ever true that he who does nothing for others, does nothing for himself.

For as human beings who may be well inclined to each other by nature, yet hold more firmly together when the law cements them, so are stones also, whose forms may already fit together, united far better by these binding forces.

With the alkalies and acids, for instance, the affinities are strikingly marked. They are of opposite natures; very likely their being of opposite natures is the secret of their effect on one another—they seek one another eagerly out, lay hold of each other, modify each other’s character, and form in connection an entirely new substance.

Glib tongues frill up their hash of knowledgefor mankind in polished speechesthat are no more than vaporous windsrustling the fallen leaves in autumn.

The ridiculous arises out of a moral contrast, in which two things are brought together before the mind in an innocent way.

Choose well. Your choice is brief, and yet endless.