Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.
Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.
Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.
Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.
Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
The coward only threatens when he is safe.
The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.
In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm... in the real world all rests on perseverance.
The deed is everything, the glory is naught.
A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.
The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.
The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.
Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.
We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright.
The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.
Life is the childhood of our immortality.
Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at.
A person hears only what they understand.
We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.
Precaution is better than cure.
Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.
If your treat an individual... as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.
The unnatural, that too is natural.
Mysteries are not necessarily miracles.
Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.
The world remains ever the same.
To hard necessity ones will and fancy must conform.
We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.
Upon the creatures we have made, we are, ourselves, at last, dependent.
If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.
To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.
What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.
Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.
Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.
He is dead in this world who has no belief in another.
He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides, or he is quite unworthy of it.
Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.
Objects in pictures should so be arranged as by their very position to tell their own story.
A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise.
The man who occupies the first place seldom plays the principal part.
Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.
I never knew a more presumptuous person than myself. The fact that I say that shows that what I say is true.
One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.
Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.
A clever man commits no minor blunders.
If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.
I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator.
We can't form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.
There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.