Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Respect for self is the beginning of cultivating virtue in men and women.

A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company.

When you locate good in yourself, approve of it with determination. When you locate evil in yourself, despise it as something detestable.

As I lived up to the highest light I had, higher and higher light came to me.

Awaken its powers, and it will respect itself.

The government is not best which secures mere life and property -- there is a more valuable thing -- manhood.

I realized that I really couldn't worry about what people think of me.

Humility leads to strength and not to weakness. It is the highest form of self-respect to admit mistakes and to make amends for them.

When you can look a thing dead in the eye, acknowledge that it exists, call it exactly what it is, and decide what role it will take in your life then, my Beloved, you have taken the first step toward your freedom.

There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.

Self-respect leads to self-discipline.

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline.

A man is first reverent about himself, and self-respect is the first stage in reverence for all things.

Humility is all about being truthful and honest.

Learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to respect ourselves, is important. The reason it's important is that, fundamentally, when we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it isn't just ourselves that we're discovering. We're discovering the universe.

All human beings have failings, all human beings have needs and temptations and stresses. Men and women who live together through long years get to know one another's failings; but they also come to know what is worthy of respect and admiration in those they live with and in themselves. If at the end one can say, This man used to the limit the powers that God granted him; he was worthy of love and respect and of the sacrifices of many people, made in order that he might achieve what he deemed to be his task, then that life has been lived well and there are no regrets.

Man must get back to himself before he can learn his relation to his fellows. Prometheus chained to the Rock of Ages is doomed to remain the prey of the vultures of darkness. Unbind Prometheus, and you dispel the night and its horrors.

Purity or impurity depends on oneself, no one can purify another.

In order to realize our true self we must be willing to live without being dependent upon the opinion of others.

The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings as he is of his own.

Overcoming difficulties leads to courage, self-respect, and knowing yourself.

If man puts his honor first in relying upon himself, knowing himself and applying himself, this in self-reliance, self-assertion, and freedom, he then strives to rid himself of the ignorance which makes a strange impenetrable object a barrier and a hindrance to his self-knowledge.

Never, however, do I take shortcuts. There is not path of least resistance in my training. What I do equates to hard manual labor, disciplined grunt work. Once you permit yourself to compromise, you fail yourself. You might be able to fool some people, but you can never fool yourself. Your toughest critic is the one you face every morning in the mirror.

A mature person does not fall in love, he or she rises in love. Only immature people fall; they stumble and fall down in love. Somehow they were managing and standing. Now they cannot manage and they cannot stand. They were always ready to fall on the ground and to creep. They don't have the backbone, the spine; they don't have the integrity to stand alone.

I am never bored; to be bored is an insult to one's self.