Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.

We can't form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.

Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.

If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.

There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one's self on lies and fables.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.

He who enjoys doing and enjoys what he has done is happy.

That I be not as those are who spend the day in complaining of headache and the night in drinking the wine which gives the headache!

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.

All things are only transitory.

To create something you must be something.

The world remains ever the same.

Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.

I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.

Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.

Nothing is to be rated higher than the value of the day.

We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.

What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.

To hard necessity ones will and fancy must conform.

The unnatural, that too is natural.

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.

A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.

One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.

I never knew a more presumptuous person than myself. The fact that I say that shows that what I say is true.

If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.

Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.

Love can do much, but duty more.

I will listen to anyone's convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself.

He who does not think much of himself is much more esteemed than he imagines.

He is dead in this world who has no belief in another.

It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.

If you modestly enjoy your fame you are not unworthy to rank with the holy.

For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.

Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.

What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.

The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.

The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.

Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.

The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim.

Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.

If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.

Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.

I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator.

Devote each day to the object then in time and every evening will find something done.

To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.

Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.

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.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.