Maxims of Goethe:

• When a rainbow has lasted as long as a quarter of an hour we stop looking at it.
• Researching into nature we are pantheists, writing poetry we are polytheists, morally we are monotheists.
• Considered historically, our good points appear in a moderate light, our faults excuse themselves.
• To do well you need talent, to do good you need means.
• For surely everyone only hears what he understands.
• If you miss the first buttonhole, you can’t ever get fully buttoned up.
• You really only know when you know little; doubt grows with knowledge.
• People think one ought to be busy with them when one isn’t busy with oneself.
• Acumen is least likely to desert clever men when they are in the wrong.
• One doesn’t find frogs wherever there is water, but there is water where you hear frogs.
• Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but not more interesting than contemplating.
• Everyone manages to have just about enough strength left to act according to his convictions.
• Let memory fail as long as our judgment remains intact when needed.
• Dirt glitters when the sun happens to shine.
• Beauty can never be clear about itself.
• Mysteries do not as yet amount to miracles.

“There are people who ponder about their friends’ shortcomings: there’s nothing to be gained by that. I have always been on the lookout for the merits of my opponents, and this has been rewarding.”