Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

I mean, I guess you could say I'm a bit of a perfectionist.

Every person is flawed. Do you think perfection exists? You, me, everyone - we have strengths and shortcomings; that's what makes us human.

I try not to focus too much on the expectations there are of me.

Nobody can be happy all the time, and if you aim to be, ultimately you will never be happy.

The problem with people is that no matter how good you are at what you do, it's never enough for them. There will always be someone to point out some flaw. Someone will always find something lacking in you.

I'm not this perfect dude.

What people don't understand is that no one is perfect.

Starting with the lyrics, 'Only scared of myself and the truth in the stars/I'm a king, I'm the dirt, God within me shine,' the first half of '6 Weeks' delves into my attempts to balance the notion that I have an existential purpose with the realization that I am nothing against the vastness of the universe.

Last time I checked, no one is perfect.

We may know ourselves, and yet even with all the efforts we make, we do not know ourselves. We know our fellowman, and yet we do not know him, because we are not a thing, and our fellowman is not a thing. The further we reach into the depths of our being, on someone else's being, the more the goal of knowledge eludes us.

Every one complains of a poor memory, no one of a weak judgment.

To accomplish the perfect perfection, a little imperfection helps.

I’ve always known that there’s more going on inside me than finds its way into the world, but this is probably true of everyone. Who doesn’t regret that he isn’t more fully understood?

To talk about the need for perfection in man is to talk about the need for another species. The essence of man is imperfection. Imperfection and blazing contradictions-between mixed good and evil, altruism and selfishness, cooperativeness and combativeness, optimism and fatalism, affirmation and negation.

Is the human condition not defined by an endless struggle to control the ego's subterfuges?

Man has always been half-monster, half-dreamer.

You're not going to be different ... you're going to be the same as you've always been; with doubts, everlasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to amend, and falls, and everlasting expectation, of a happiness which you won't get, and which isn't possible for you.

The ingredients of both darkness and light are equally present in all of us,...The madness of this planet is largely a result of the human being's difficulty in coming to viruous balance with himself.

Man is a paradoxical being - the constant glory and scandal of this world.

To deny the darkness of the soul is to be but half a human being. But we had both sides.

Self-awareness is a trait that not only makes us human but also paradoxically makes us want to be more than merely human. As I said in my BBC Reith Lectures, “Science tells us we are merely beasts, but we don’t feel like that. We feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, forever craving transcendence

I'm such a perfectionist. I always feel overpraised or whatever. In the abstract, I know I'm a good person, a good professional. But it's nice to be noticed a little bit, ain't it?

The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman.

What is man that his welfare be considered? An ape who chatters of kinship with the archangels while he very filthily digs for groundnuts. And yet I perceive that this same man is a maimed God. He is condemned under penalty to measure eternity with an hourglass and infinity with a yardstick and what is more, he very nearly does it.

I have sometimes, probably, forgotten - and I know I have - to pat the back of someone or said thank you enough times or maybe even once sometimes I wish I were perfect. I wish I were just the nicest, nicest, nicest person on Earth. But I am a business person.If I were a man no one would ever say that I was arrogant.