Johann Wolfgang Goethe

"If you trust yourself, you will know how to live."

"The years teach much that the days never know."

"Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at."

"Genius is formed in quiet, character in the stream of life."

"A man should be whatever age he is."

"As a man makes himself, so he is."

"The artist's task is to save the soul of mankind; and anything less is a dithering while Rome burns."

"Only the moment is important to me, not the product of millions of moments."

"Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image."

"There is a beautiful law of compensation: whatever we pay sincere attention to, comes back to us."

"All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes the thing which is not a poison."

"To love another person is to see the face of God."

"Architecture is petrified music."

"Every one carries a piece of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility."

"One cannot always build the future for youth, but one can build youth for the future."

"A friend is, as it were, a second self."

"What is the source of sadness but feebleness? What the source of strength but effort?"

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."

"The person who does not read has no advantage over the person who cannot read."

"Tell me what you read and I'll tell you what you are."

"I am always best when I am on the stage."

"The goal is not to sit with the head in the clouds, but to keep our feet on the ground."

"All moral activity is based on the dignity of the human being."

"The decline of literature indicates the decline of the nation."

"Nothing is so terrible as activity without insight."

"The butterfly is a flying flower, the flower is an imprisoned butterfly."

"This is the highest wisdom that I own; that all that lives will die."

"A clever man commits no minor blunders."

"In the end, we only regret the chances we didn't take."

"The purest happiness comes from striving to become a better person."