A dim vastness is spread before our souls; the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision... But alas! When we have attained our object, when the distant 'there' becomes the present 'here,' all is changed; we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Age merely shows what children we remain.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A human being needs only a small plot of ground on which to be happy, and even less to lie beneath.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

[Alexander on] Humboldt showers us with true treasures.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All force strives forward to work far and wide To live and grow and ever to expand;Yet we are checked and thwarted on each side By the world's flux and swept along like sand:In this internal storm and outward tide We hear a promise, hard to understand:From the compulsion that all creatures binds, Who overcomes himself, his freedom finds.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All that is transitory is but a metaphor.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs evergreen.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe