Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself.

Not the maker of plans and promises, but rather the one who offers faithful service in small matters. This is the person who is most likely to achieve what is good and lasting.

Generosity wins favour for everyone, especially when it is accompanied by modesty.

Everywhere, we learn only from those whom we love.

A man doesn't learn to understand anything unless he loves it.

Nature does not suffer her veil to be taken from her, and what she does not choose to reveal to the spirit, thou wilt not wrest from her by levers and screws.

No one can take from us the joy of the first becoming aware of something, the so-called discovery. But if we also demand the honor, it can be utterly spoiled for us, for we are usually not the first. What does discovery mean, and who can say that he has discovered this or that? After all it's pure idiocy to brag about priority; for it's simply unconscious conceit, not to admit frankly that one is a plagiarist.

There is no permanence in doubt; it incites the mind to closer inquiry and experiment, from which, if rightly managed, certainty proceeds, and in this alone can man find thorough satisfaction.

Science has been seriously retarded by the study of what is not worth knowing and of what is not knowable.

We can always redeem the man who aspires and strives.

Desire is the presentiment of our inner abilities, and the forerunner of our ultimate accomplishments.

Everything we do has a result. But that which is right and prudent does not always lead to good, nor the contrary to what is bad.

Theories are usually the over-hasty efforts of an impatient understanding that would gladly be rid of phenomena, and so puts in their place pictures, notions, nay, often mere words.

The hero draws inspiration from the virtue of his ancestors.

Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.

Wherever a man may happen to turn, whatever a man may undertake, he will always end up by returning to that path which nature has marked out for him.

Energy will do anything that can be done in this world.

If you wish to advance into the infinite, explore the finite in all directions.

Everything is both simpler than we can imagine and more entangled than we can conceive.

The soul is indestructible and its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set at night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere.

The greatest genius will not be worth much if he pretends to draw exclusively from his own resources