I never believed in trying to do anything. Whatever I set out to do I found I had already accomplished. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe More Quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe More Quotes From Johann Wolfgang von Goethe For the butterfly, mating and propagation involve the sacrifice of life, for the human being, the sacrifice of beauty. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe butterfly sacrifice sex All beginnings are delightful; the threshold is the place to pause. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe threshold delightful luck Wanted: A dog that neither barks nor bites, eats broken glass and shits diamonds. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe glasses broken dog The highest happiness, the purest joys of life, wear out at last. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe lasts joy happiness The best pleasures of this world are not quite true. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe pleasure this-world world A man must cling to the belief that the incomprehensible is comprehensible; otherwise he would not try to fathom it. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe learning trying men Life seems so vulgar, so easily content with the commonplace things of every day, and yet it always nurses and cherishes certain higher claims in secret, and looks about for the means of satisfying them. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe nurse life mean The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe giving-up life art [Nature's] crown is Love. Only through Love can we come near her. She puts gulfs between all things, and all things strive to be interfused. She isolates everything, that she may draw everything together. With a few draughts from the cup of Love she repays for a life full of trouble. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe crowns together love There is no greater consolation for mediocrity than that the genius is not immortal. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe immortal mediocrity genius The longer I live, the more it grieves me to see man, who occupies his supreme place for the very purpose of imposing his will upon nature, and freeing himself and his from an outrageous necessity--to see him taken up with some false notion, and doing just the opposite of what he wants to do; and then, because the whole bent of his mind is spoilt, bungling miserably over everything. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe taken grieving men To every one [Nature] appears in a form of his own. She hides herself in a thousand names and terms, and is always the same. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe form nature names Nature! We are surrounded by her and locked in her clasp: powerless to leave her, and powerless to come closer to her. Unasked and unwarned she takes us up into the whirl of her dance, and hurries on with us till we are weary and fall from her arms. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe arms nature fall Opponents fancy they refute us when they repeat their own opinion and pay no attention to ours. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe opponents pay attention Over the trackless past, somewhere, Lie the lost days of our tropic youth, Only regained by faith and prayer, Only recalled by prayer and plaint, Each lost day has its patron saint! Johann Wolfgang von Goethe prayer lying past Piety is not an end, but a means: a means of attaining the highest culture by the purest tranquility of soul. Hence it may be observed that those who set up piety as an end and object are mostly hypocrites. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe hypocrite soul mean Who enslaves another's manhood with weak human power alone, Lays a heavier yoke of bondage thoughtlessly upon his own. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe slavery yoke weak There is nothing worth thinking but it has been thought before; we must only try to think it again. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe has-beens trying thinking The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognizing a truth which has already been recognized by others. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe truth clever believe It is not always needful for truth to take a definite shape; it is enough if it hovers about us like a spirit and produces harmony; if it is wafted through the air like the sound of a bell, grave and kindly. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe bells truth air
