Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Care is taken that trees do not grow into the sky.

We're careful not to saturate people.

The enforcement is the flip side to the growth. And that's OK.

The river flows at its own sweet will, but the flood is bound in the two banks. If it were not thus bound, its freedom would be wasted.

Power ought to serve as a check to power.

You can't, in a government agency, regulate everything that moves ... you can't regulate everything ... you must strike a balance.

Power should be a check to power.

It is mediocrity which makes laws and sets mantraps and spring-guns in the realm of free song, saying thus far shalt thou go and no further.

There's a fine line between giving the sense of freedom and being too free.

You will have no sensation of a leash around your neck if you sit by the peg. It is only when you stray that you feel the restraining tug.

The tree is a slow, enduring force straining to win the sky.

Moderation in all things. And even moderation in moderation. Don't get too much moderation, you know?

Moderation, we find, is an extremely difficult thing to get in this country.

If we surrendered to earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees.

But harmony is limitation. Thus rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality. Unlimited possibility and abstract creativity can procure nothing.

Enthusiasm is of the greatest value, so long as we are not carried away by it.

There is a proper balance between not asking enough of oneself and asking or expecting too much.

It is better to be a little too strict than too liberal.

Simplicity is the law of Nature for man as well as for flowers. When the tapestry (corolla) of the nuptial bed (calyx) is excessive, luxuriant, it is unproductive. The fertile flowers are single, not double.

I think it's quite good to have an amount of unavailability.

The greatest genius is never so great as when it is chastised and subdued by the highest reason.

Temperance gives nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigor.

As soon as rules were made, names were given. There are already many names. One must know when it is enough.