Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.

Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.

Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds.

Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.

To rule is easy, to govern difficult.

It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.

Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.

We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.

Great thoughts and a pure heart, that is what we should ask from God.

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.

We can't form our children on our own concepts we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.

He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.

It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.