Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

They declaim against the passions without bothering to think that it is from their flame philosophy lights its torch.

As reason is a rebel to faith, so passion is a rebel to reason.

Reason is the historian, but passions are the actors.

I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.

Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals, for the most part governed by the impulse of passion.

Logic is no answer to passion.

Sentiment inspires me no less than reason.

Reason without passion is sterile, but passion without reason is hysteria.

The general consumption of any commodity by the vulgar lessens, on the contrary, in many minds, the pleasure it would otherwise give. It brings down the individual, in this particular, to a level with the lowest

Love is the only rational act.

Let us not dream that reason can ever be popular. Passions, emotions, may be made popular; but reason remains ever the property of an elect few.

Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.

Our passion and principals are constantly in a frenzy, but begin to shift and waver, as we return to reason.

Reason guides but a small part of man, and the rest obeys feeling, true or false, and passion, good or bad.

Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.

There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

Philosophy is for the few.

The rule in the art world is: you cater to the masses or you kowtow to the elite; you can't have both.

Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions.

There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination.

The passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

Man is said to be a reasoning animal. I do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. Perhaps that which differentiates him from other animals is feeling rather than reason

Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense.

There are people who don't like popularity. It's much better to be exclusive and remote.

Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.