Men grieve [Mephistopheles] so with the days of their lamenting, [he] even hate[s] to plague them with [his] torments.

Know thyself? If I knew myself, I’d run away.

Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome.

nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart.

Who are you then?” “I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.

Gracious Providence, to whom I owe all my powers, why didst thou not withhold some of those blessings I possess, and substitute in their place a feeling of self-confidence and contentment?

If any man wishes to write a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts.

Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at.

Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

All that is noble is in itself of a quiet nature, and appears to sleep until it is aroused and summoned forth by contrast.

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

Each has his own happiness in his hands, as the artist handles the rude clay he seeks to reshape it into a figure; yet it is the same with this art as with all others:...

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.

No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.

No one should be rich except those who understand it.

Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate.

There is no better deliverance from the world than through art; and a man can form no surer bond with it than through art

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

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

What chance gathers she easily scatters. A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.

There is repetition everywhere, and nothing is found only once in the world.

Superstition is poetry of life, so that it does not injure the poet to be superstitious

Everything great and intelligent is in the minority

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

For in music there is no material to be deducted.

To end the greatest work designed,A thousand hands need but one mind.

schade dass die Natur nur einen Mensch aus dir schuf / denn zum wurdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff” (loose translation: nature, alas, made only one being out of you although there was...

Nothing is worth more than this day.

In all things it is better to hope than to despair

Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

What is not fully understood is not possessed.

Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.

Continue to make the demands of the day your immediate concern, and take occasion to test the purity of your hearts and the steadfastness of your spirits. When you then take a deep breath and...

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

The unnatural, that too is natural

Superstition is the poetry of life.

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him, he must regard himself as greater than he is

The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.

A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for them, and he patiently suffers much for them; but he becomes impatient if he is required to give them up

He is dead in this world who has no belief in another.

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

The public wishes itself to be managed like a woman; one must say nothing to it except what it likes to hear

To create something you must be something.

Eigentlich weiß man nur wenn man wenig weiß – mit dem Wissen wächst der Zweifel.

Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which...

Do not give in too much to feelings. A overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth.