Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

I like being swept up in weather and observing it as something beautiful and giant.

It's important to cultivate a tolerance and patience with uncomfortable feelings. It's best to feel them.

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.

I have a vocabulary all my own. I "pass the time" when it is wet and disagreeable. When it is fine I do not wish to pass it; I ruminate it and hold on to it. We should hasten over the bad, and settle upon the good.

When we see a beautiful object, a beautiful garden, or a beautiful flower, let us think that there we behold a ray of the infinite beauty of God, who has given existence to that object.

I can find something beautiful in everyone

The capacity to be overwhelmed by the beautiful is astonishingly sturdy and survives amidst the harshest distractions.

May our memories of kindness be long and of offenses be short.

The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.

Love opens all doors, no matter how tightly closed they may be, no matter how rusty from lack of use. Your work is to bring unity and harmony, to open all those doors which have been closed for a long time. Have patience and tolerance. Open your heart all the time.

I don't care, but I don't get bitter about anything as long as I can work and do the things I love. And it would be a beautiful world if those things I love and that mean something could remain as they are.

As long as we love, we can forgive.

Patience is the ability to suffer a long time under the mistreatment of others without growing resentful or bitter.

When we come into contact with the other person, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things that are not easy to accept. We practice in this way until we see clearly that our love is not contingent upon the other person being lovable.

Fortunately, we can take in only so much misfortune; what exceeds that limit either destroys us or leaves us indifferent.

I cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the fronts upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, wherever they appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not be long before they appear to destroy you.

...sometimes we ask ourselves why happiness took so long to arrive, why it didn't come sooner, but appears suddenly, as now, when we've given up hope of it ever arriving, it's likely then that we won't know what to do, and rather than it being a question of choosing between laughter and tears, we will be filled by a secret anxiety to which we might not know how to respond at all.

If I did not speak with people who call me names, I could not engage in politics.

Grant me prudently to avoid him that flatters me, and to endure patiently him that contradicts me.

Some people in this world have stopped looking for beauty, then wonder why their lives are so ugly. Don't be like them. The ability to appreciate beauty is of God. Especially in one another. Look for beauty in everyone you meet, and you'll find it. Everyone carries divinity within them. And everyone we meet has something to impart.

Quietly endure, silently suffer and patiently wait.

People are terrified of other people or difficult projects because they tell themselves that they could fail or be rejected. Failure can lead to sorrow, regret, frustration and annoyance - all healthy, negative feelings without which people couldn't exist. But then they add, "I absolutely must succeed and must be loved by significant persons, and if I don't, it's terrible and I'm no good." Those are irrational beliefs. As long as people keep them, they'll be terrified of life and will put themselves down when they get rejected.

A child needs your love most when he deserves it least

Men of genius are rarely much annoyed by the company of vulgar people, because they have a power of looking at such persons as objects of amusement of another race altogether.