Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.”

“The coward only threatens when he is safe.”

“Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.”

“For in music there is no material to be deducted.”

“If you've never eaten while crying you don t know what life tastes like.”

“If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.”

“There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.”

“Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.”

“You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it neverRises from the soul, and swaysThe heart of every single hearer,With deepest power, in simple ways.You’ll sit forever, gluing things together,Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps,Blowing on a miserable fire,Made from your heap of dying ash.Let apes and children praise your art,If their admiration’s to your taste,But you’ll never speak from heart to heart,Unless it rises up from your heart’s space.”

“The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.”

“Each one's no longer consciousOf the high wall, or the rest:Since the one enduring fortress,Is the soldier's iron breast.If you’d live unconquered,Quickly arm, and fight the real foe:Every wife an Amazon bred,And every child a hero.”

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

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”

“Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.”

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

“The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.”

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

“Let this little book be thy friend, if, owing to fortune or through thine own fault, thou canst not find a dearer companion.”

“Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd run away.”

“But there are times," said Charlotte, "when it is necessary and an act of friendship to write nothing rather than not to write.”