Johann Wolfgang Goethe was a German writer and statesman.His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels.
In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings by him exist.
Correction does much, but encouragement does more.
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.
Love can do much, but duty more.
Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.
What is my life if I am no longer useful to others.
The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.
Precaution is better than cure.
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
I love those who yearn for the impossible.
Wisdom is found only in truth.
Error is acceptable as long as we are young; but one must not drag it along into old age.
Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.
If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how 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 to be and could be.
We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.
Love does not dominate; it cultivates.
To rule is easy, to govern difficult.
Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.
Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.
We will burn that bridge when we come to it.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.
If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.
Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.
Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.
Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.
