Quotes to inspire and reflect

O’er all the hilltops Is quiet now, In all the treetops Hearest thou Hardly a breath; The birds are asleep in the trees: Wait; soon like these Thou too shalt rest. 16

In limitations he first shows himself the master, And the law can only bring us freedom.

Do you wish to roam farther and farther? See! The Good lies so near. Only learn to seize good fortune, For good fortune’s always here.

The Eternal Feminine draws us on. 15

Who strives always to the utmost, For him there is salvation. 14

The deed is everything, the glory nothing.

Of freedom and of life he only is deserving Who every day must conquer them anew. 13

Once a man’s thirty, he’s already old, He is indeed as good as dead. It’s best to kill him right away.

I love those who yearn for the impossible.

Law is mighty, mightier necessity.

My peace is gone, My heart is heavy. 12

Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live.

A true German can’t stand the French, Yet willingly he drinks their wines.

Dear friend, all theory is gray, And green the golden tree of life.

I am the Spirit that always denies! 11

Am I a god? I see so clearly!

Two souls alas! dwell in my breast.

And here, poor fool! with all my lore I stand! no wiser than before. 10

Man errs as long as he strives. 9

Who wants to understand the poem Must go to the land of poetry; Who wishes to understand the poet Must go to the poet’s land.

Age does not make us childish, as they say. It only finds us true children still.

A useless life is an early death.

The spirits that I summoned up I now can’t rid myself of.

Seeking with the soul the land of the Greeks.

Knowst thou the land where the lemon trees bloom, 4 Where the gold orange glows in the deep thicket’s gloom, Where a wind ever soft from the blue heaven blows, And the groves are of laurel and myrtle and rose?

I sing as the bird sings That lives in the boughs. 2

Who ne’er his bread in sorrow ate, Who ne’er the mournful midnight hours Weeping upon his bed has sate, He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers. 3

Noble be man, Helpful and good! For that alone Sets him apart From every other creature On earth.

If you inquire what the people are like here, I must answer, “The same as everywhere!”

One lives but once in the world.

There is strong shadow where there is much light.

Toll for the brave— The brave! that are no more; All sunk beneath the wave, Fast by their native shore!

No voice divine the storm allayed, When, snatched from all effectual aid, But I beneath a rougher sea, And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he.

Shine by the side of every path we tread With such a luster, he that runs may read.

An honest man, close-button’d to the chin, Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.

May give a useful lesson to the head, And Learning wiser grow without his books.

Knowledge is proud that he has learn’d so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.

But war’s a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds; And as the mind is pitch’d the ear is pleas’d With melting airs or martial, brisk, or grave: Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touch’d within us, and the heart replies.

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

’Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, To peep at such a world; to see the stir Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.

Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.

From reveries so airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up.

Variety’s the very spice of life.

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free! They touch our country, and their shackles fall.

God made the country, and man made the town.

Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumor of oppression and deceit, Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might never reach me more.

A hat not much the worse for wear.