The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers & cities; but to know someone who thinks & feels with us, & who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.
I have so much in me, and the feeling for her absorbs it all; I have so much, and without her it all comes to nothing.
This is the true measure of love: when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will ever love in the same way after us.
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
If you’ve never eaten while crying you don t know what life tastes like.
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.
Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.
If you would create something,you must be something.
Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do; and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension.
What matters creative endless toil, When, at a snatch, oblivion ends the coil?
Ohne Hast, aber ohne Rast. – Without haste, but without rest.
The way you see people is the way you treat them and the way you treat them is what they become.
All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, until they take root in our personal experience.
Behaviour is a mirror in which every one displays his own image.
Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.
A human being needs only a small plot of ground on which to be happy, and even less to lie beneath.
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.
The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.
If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.
He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.
Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.
Anything in the world can be endured, except a series of wonderful days.
If the whole world I once could seeOn free soil stand, with the people freeThen to the moment might I say,Linger awhile. . .so fair thou art.
Nothing is more highly to be prized than the value of each day
Let this little book be thy friend, if, owing to fortune or through thine own fault, thou canst not find a dearer companion.
The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.
The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.
Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it!
The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free
Nothing can be compared to the new life that the discovery of another country provides for a thoughtful person. Although I am still the same I believe to have changed to the bones.
A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.
The greatest evil that can befall man is that he should come to think ill of himself.
All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
To end the greatest work designed,A thousand hands need but one mind.
Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.
I possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. I possess so much, but without her I have nothing.
The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honour or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.
What is the destiny of man, but to fill up the measure of his sufferings, and to drink his allotted cup of bitterness?
Then indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting over lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.
Literature decays only as men become more and more corrupt.
nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart.
I was on the point of breaking off the conversation, for nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart.
The limits of my language are the limits of my universe.
It seems it has been my fate to sadden those I should have made happy.
God knows I often retire to my bed wishing (at times even hoping) that I might never wake up; and in the morning I open my eyes, see the sun once again, and am miserable.
I could be living the best and happiest of lives if only I were not a fool.
We look back on our life as a thing of broken pieces, because our mistakes and failures are always the first to strike us, and outweigh in our imagination what we have accomplished and attained.
We really learn only from those books that we cannot judge. The author of a book that we were able to judge would have to learn from us.
Must it so be that whatever makes man happy must later become the source of his misery?
Only air and light and the love of friends! Let no man lose heart who still has these.
When a human awakens to a great dream and throws the full force of his soul over it, all the universe conspires in your favor.
Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.
But there are times,” said Charlotte, “when it is necessary and an act of friendship to write nothing rather than not to write.
Everything is just how I imagined it, yet everything is new
Once we are lost unto ourselves, everything else is lost to us.
No one has ever properly understood me, I have never fully understood anyone; and no one understands anyone else
By Fortune’s adverse buffets overborneTo solitude I fled, to wilds forlorn,And not in utter loneliness to live,Myself at last did to the Devil give!
If I wasn’t a devil myself I’d give Me up to the Devil this very minute.
Who are you then?” “I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.
I am the spirit that negates.And rightly so, for all that comes to beDeserves to perish wretchedly;’Twere better nothing would begin.Thus everything that that your terms, sin,Destruction, evil represent—That is my proper element.
It is not easy in this world for one person to understand the next one.
Moreover I hate everything which merely instructs me without increasing or directly quickening my activity.
Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome.
Because everyone uses language to talk, everyone thinks they can talk about language.
Du hast so viele Leben, wie du Sprachen sprichst. (You have as many lives as the number of languages you speak.)
Do not give in too much to feelings. A overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth.
A mans manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.
if only these treasures were not so fragile as they are precious and beautiful.
It is ever true that he who does nothing for others, does nothing for himself.
Talent develops in tranquility, character in the full current of human life.
There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they find to laugh at.
There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.
schade dass die Natur nur einen Mensch aus dir schuf / denn zum wurdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff” (loose translation: nature, alas, made only one being out of you although there was material for a good man & a rogue)
Every day one should at least hear one little song, read one good poem, see one fine painting and — if at all possible — speak a few sensible words.
Cease endlessly striving for what you would like to do and learn to love what must be done.
Des Menschen Kraft, im Dichter offenbartThe human power is revealed by poetIl potere dell’umanità si rivela nel poeta
The world turns gray, the air grows cool, the fog blows in. Only at evening can you really value home.
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.
Choose well. Your choice is brief, and yet endless.
In this world one is seldom reduced to make a selection between two alternatives. There are as many varieties of conduct and opinion as there are turns of feature between an aquiline nose and a flat one.
Grant me one hour on love’s most sacred shoresTo clasp the bosom that my soul adores,Lie heart to heart and merge my soul with yours.
Legislators and revolutionaries who promise equality and liberty at the same time, are either psychopaths or mountebanks.
Man needs only a small patch of earth for his pleasures, and a smaller one still to rest beneath.
Solitude is precious balm to my heart in these paradistic parts.
The things I know, every man can know, but, oh, my heart is mine alone!
The Church has an excellent appetite. She has swallowed whole countries and the questionHas never risen of indigestion. Only the Church . . . can take Ill-gotten goods without stomach-ache!
In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm. … In the real world, all rests on perseverance.
Gracious Providence, to whom I owe all my powers, why didst thou not withhold some of those blessings I possess, and substitute in their place a feeling of self-confidence and contentment?
As usual, I shall tell my story badly; and you, as usual, will think me extravagant.
There occurs the beautiful feeling that only humanity together is the true human being, and that the individual can be cheerful and happy only if he has the courage to feel himself in the Whole.
Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
15″General ideas and great conceit are always a fair way to bring about terrible misfortune.
Whatever liberates our spirit without giving us mastery over ourselves is destructive.
I’m fairly fond of boys, but my preference is for girls; When I have enough of a girl, she serves me still as a boy.
In all things it is better to hope than to despair.
Divide and rule, the politician cries;Unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.
It’s in the anomalies that nature reveals its secrets.
I’ve often heard it said, a preacherMight learn, with a comedian for a teacher.
He’d have improved if you’d not givenHim a mere glimmer of the light in heaven;He calls it Reason, and it has only increasedHis power to be beastlier than a beast.
There you have it! – How they anticipate my wishes, how they grant friendship’s little attentions, which are worth a thousand times more than breathtaking presents that merely prove the giver’s vanity and humiliate us.
On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold.
My father, my father, and dost thou not hearThe words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear?’Be calm, dearest child, ’tis thy fancy deceives;Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves.
National hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.
When I say to the Moment flying;’Linger a while — thou art so fair!’Then bind me in thy bonds undying,And my final ruin I will bear!
[Alexander von] Humboldt showers us with true treasures.
What you inherit from your fathermust first be earned before it’s yours.
When he comes to the doorhe always looks mocking and half-way angry.You can see he has sympathy for nothing.It’s written on his foreheadthat he can love no one.
Being full of mischief, they love to listen;they gladly obey, for they like to betray you,pretending to be sent from Heaven,and lisping like angels, while they lie.
Glib tongues frill up their hash of knowledgefor mankind in polished speechesthat are no more than vaporous windsrustling the fallen leaves in autumn.
Men grieve [Mephistopheles] so with the days of their lamenting, [he] even hate[s] to plague them with [his] torments.
Here too it’s masquerade, I find: As everywhere, the dance of mind.I grasped a lovely masked procession,And caught things from a horror show…I’d gladly settle for a false impression,If it would last a little longer, though.
We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavour to efface them.
There is no higher or purer pleasure than to sit with closed eyes and hear a naturally expressive voice recite… a play of Shakespeare’s.
One who has passed the thirtieth yearalready is as good as dead–it would be best to kill you off by then.
One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.
What’s foreign one can’t always keep quite clear of,For good things, oft, are not so near;A German can’t endure the French to see or hear of,Yet drinks their wines with hearty cheer.
Those who have never seen themselves surrounded on all sides by the sea can never possess an idea of the world, and of their relation to it.
If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts.
There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.
Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.
Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.
Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.
Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.
Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.
To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods.
Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.
Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.
In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.
One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.
Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.
He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.
Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?
Error is acceptable as long as we are young but one must not drag it along into old age.
A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.
The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.
All intelligent thoughts have already been thought what is necessary is only to try to think them again.
One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.
Great thoughts and a pure heart, that is what we should ask from God.
If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.
We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.
It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.
Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.
Correction does much, but encouragement does more.
Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.
He who does not think much of himself is much more esteemed than he imagines.
Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.
It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.
The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.
The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.
Knowing is not enough we must apply. Willing is not enough we must do.
Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.
The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.
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.
The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.
Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.
This is the highest wisdom that I own freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.
Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity.
He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.
Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture.
All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.
What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.
Girls we love for what they are young men for what they promise to be.
Science arose from poetry… when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.
The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.
What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own.
No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.
One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.
He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.