Schiller moves upward. Goethe comes from up above.
Profundity easily turns into dullness and astuteness deteriorates into wit. Be guided by natural common sense and it will accommodate great and small.
Why do villains have so much influence? Because the honest people are terribly dense.
Just as the queen bee, the highest-ranking, peerless creature of her hive, is surrounded by lowly drones to please her, whereas the workers produce honey, the same way is the one who sits on the throne an equal only to himself, and no one’s companion.
The likeness of the world? A shadow! And world’s glory? A dream!
Many said selfishness was the flaw of our modern age; but then self-conceit emerged from a corner of the deepest hell to join selfishness.
Captivating the spirit of the age is a matter of great talent; being swept away by it characterizes an average mind. The two are as different from one another as activity and passivity.
Erroneous views and presumptuousness send a talent to the insane asylum.
Why does the past look so enticing to us? For the same reason why from a distance a meadow with flowers looks like a flower bed.
Christianity is the religion of melancholy and hypochondria. Islam, on the other hand, promotes apathy, and Judaism instills its adherents with a certain choleric vehemence, the heathen Greeks may well be called happy optimists.
The character of the crowds is made up of mimicry and hostility.
It is the emotions to which one objects in Germany most of all.
In the long run, only woman remains true to mankind’s foremost mission. Whatever she achieves, she achieves through herself, and alone. Man’s master is the – public.
What’s the meaning of all the pious clamor, condemning cocks and hens? Those who have no teeth are the greatest meat-haters.
It is not a matter of desire, but of coercion and duty.
Austrian soldiers are like horses: brave but easily frightened.
The graceful flowers of innocence are more valuable than the laurel crown of fame.
I know how ingratitude burns, how falsehood tortures, for I have been deceived in friendship and in love; I have learned to lose and to resign myself.
If human beings are immortal, so are animals. If matter has the ability to remember, it also has the ability to think.
Today is, after all, today, but yesterday is of the same substance as tomorrow.
Die Inspiration war mein Gott und ist es geblieben.