What you desire when young, you have in abundance when old. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
While man's desires and aspirations stir he cannot choose but err. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
From desire I plunge to its fulfilment, where I long once more for desire. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Our passions are the true phoenixes; when the old one is burnt out, a new one rises from its ashes. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
A plant is like a self-willed man, out of whom we can obtain all which we desire, if we will only treat… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Each ten years of a man's life has its own fortunes, its own hopes, its own desires. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Thus I reel from desire to fulfillment and in fulfillment languish for desire. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Desire is the presentiment of our inner abilities, and the forerunner of our ultimate accomplishments. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
The desire to explain what is simple by what is complex, what is easy by what is difficult, is a calamity . — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in even greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Alas, that we should be so unwilling to listen to the still and holy yearnings of the heart! A god whispers quite… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Whoever, in middle age, attempts to realize the wishes and hopes of his early youth, invariably deceives himself. Each ten years of… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
In happy ignorance, I sighed for a world I did not know, where I hoped to find every pleasure and enjoyment which… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honour or… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
“I'll see the sprouts in the morning when you wake up from sleep, and with glee look at the way the bright… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Vanity is a desire of personal glory, the wish to be appreciated, honoured, and run after, not because of one's personal qualities,… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
I examine my own being, and find there a world, but a world rather of imagination and dim desires, than of distinctness… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
I must consider more closely this cycle of good and bad days which I find coursing within myself. Passion, attachment, the urge to action, inventiveness, performance, order all alternate and keep their orbit; cheerfulness, vigor, energy, flexibility and fatigue, serenity as well as desire. Nothing disturbs the cycle for I lead a simple life, but I must still find the… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share
It is not given to us to grasp the truth, which is identical with the divine, directly. We perceive it only in… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
“The Holy Longing Tell a wise person, or else keep silent, Because the massman will mock it right away. I praise what is truly alive, what longs to be burned to death. In the calm water of the love-nights, where you were begotten, where you have begotten, a strange feeling comes over you when you see the silent candle burning.… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share
True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
I never believed in trying to do anything. Whatever I set out to do I found I had already accomplished. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
All lyrical work must, as a whole, be perfectly intelligible, but in some particulars a little unintelligible. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
The connoisseur of art must be able to appreciate what is simply beautiful, but the common run of people is satisfied with ornament — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Copy Share Image
Let us not dream that reason can ever be popular. Passions, emotions, may be made popular; but reason remains ever the property of an… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image