Quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To rule is easy, to govern difficult.
Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.
Every spoken word arouses our self-will.
It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.
Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
Strike the dog dead, it's but a critic!
Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.
One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.
The unnatural, that too is natural.
I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.
If I love you, what does that matter to you!
Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.
Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.
Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.
The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.
The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.
The human mind will not be confined to any limits.
No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.
He who is plenteously provided for from within, needs but little from without.
Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.
Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.
There is nothing more frightful than imagination without taste.
The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.
