64 Quotes by Goethe

All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, until they take root in our personal experience.

Courage, strength and hope possess my soul…I will stand firmly and without fear.

Insofar as he makes use of his healthy senses, man himself is the best and most exact scientific instrument possible. The greatest misfortune of modern physics is that its experiments have been set apart from man, as it were, physics refuses to recognize nature in anything not shown by artificial instruments, and even uses this as a measure of its accomplishments.

To grant me a vision of Nature's forces that bind the world, all its seeds and sources and innermost life... all this I shall see... and stop peddling in words that mean nothing to me."(Daß ich erkenne was die Welt im Innersten zusammenhält... Schau alle Wirkenskraft und Samen... und tu nicht mehr in Worten kramen.)

Wenn die Blattläuse auf den Rosenzweigen sitzen und sich hübsch dick und grün gesogen haben, dann kommen die Ameisen und saugen ihnen den filtrierten Saft aus den Leibern. Und so geht's weiter, und wir haben's so weit gebracht, daß oben immer an einem Tage mehr verzehrt wird, als unten in einem beigebracht werden kann.

The limits of my language are the limits of my universe.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.

The greatest evil that can befall man is that he should come to think ill of himself.

Before you can do something you must first be something.