Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quotes - page 29

How can we know ourselves Never by reflection, but only through action. Begin at once to do your duty and immediately you will know what is inside you. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
When a wife has a good husband it is easily seen in her face.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Where there is much light, the shadow is deep.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Each has his own happiness in his hands, as the artist handles the rude clay he seeks to reshape it into a figure yet it is the same with this art as with all others only the capacity for it is innate the art itself must be learned and painstakingly practiced.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Love rules (and reigns) not, but it forms (builds and 'trains'); and that is more!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
But among all the discoveries and corrections probably none has resulted in a deeper influence on the human spirit than the doctrine of Copernicus.... Possibly mankind has never been demanded to do more, for considering all that went up in smoke as a result of realizing this change: a second Paradise, a world of innocence, poetry and piety: the witness of the senses, the conviction of a poetical and religious faith. No wonder his contemporaries did not wish to let all this go and offered every possible resistance to a doctrine which in its converts authorized and demanded a freedom of view and greatness of thought so far unknown indeed not even dreamed of.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nothing is great but truth, and the smallest truth is great. The other day I had a thought, which I put like this: Even a harmful truth is useful, for it can be harmful only for the moment and will lead to other truths, which must always become useful, very much so. Conversely, even a useful error is harmful, for it can be useful only for the moment, enticing us into other errors, which become more and more harmful.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Whoever intends to have the right, if but his tongue be clever, Will have it, certainly.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Good! A method can be used without physicians, gold, or magic, Go out into the open field and start to dig and cultivate; keep your body and your spirit in a humble and restricted sphere, sustain yourself by simple fare, live with your herd and spread your own manure on land from which you reap your nourishment. Believe me, that's the best procedure to keep your youth for eighty years or more.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Those who cannot draw conclusions From three thousand years of learning Stay naïve in dark confusions Day to day live undiscerning.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe