Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will.

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.

We are free when we are not the slave of our impulses, but rather their master. Taking inward distance, we thus become the authors of our own dramas rather than characters in them.

The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you.

A man without decision can never be said to belong to himself.

Of my own spirit let me be in sole though feeble mastery.

The art of living consists in knowing which impulses to obey and which must be made to obey.

Heaven has given to every human being the power of controlling his passions, and if he neglects or loses it, the fault is his own, and he must be answerable for it.

I am going to walk away when I'm ready to walk away. Not because of a win or a loss.

The important thing to remember is you control you. Nothing else can control you.

We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls.

It is all very well to talk about being the captain of your soul. It is hard, and only a few heroes, saints, and geniuses have been the captains of their souls for any extended period of their lives.

I cannot give up my will - I must exercise it, putting it into action.

I thought The Limits of Control could be interpreted in two ways: as the limits of one's self-control; and as the limits of allowing other people's control over one's - consciousness - which I kind of thought was a double meaning that was appropriate.

No man is free who is not master of himself... Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose?

No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself.

I believe in one thing only, the power of human will.

Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.

A man must drive his energy, not be driven by it.

My mom raised me to never have anything control me.

A man should control his life. Mine is controlling me.

Human freedom involves our capacity to pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight.

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.