All JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE Quotes about “Age”

“Age merely shows what children we remain.”
“When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.”
“Whoever, in middle age, attempts to realize the wishes and hopes of his early youth, invariably deceives himself. Each ten years of a man's life has its own fortunes, its own hopes, its own desires.”
“Someone criticized an elderly man for wooing young women. He replied that that was the only way to rejuvenation, which was, afterall, everybody's wish.”
“Tolerance comes of age. I see no fault committed that I myself could not have committed at some time or other.”
“At all times it has not been the age, but individuals alone, who have worked for knowledge. It was the age which put Socrates to death by poison, the age which burnt Huss. The ages have always remained alike.”
“The older we get the more we must limit ourselves if we wish to be active.”
“We must not take the faults of our youth with us into old age, for age brings along its own defects.”
“Rejoice that you have still have a long time to live, before the thought comes to you that there is nothing more in the world to see.”
“It is only necessary to grow old to become more charitable and even indulgent. I see no fault committed by others that I have not committed myself.”
“Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.”
“However often we turn to it [the Koran] at first disgusting us each time afresh, it soon attracts, astounds, and in the end enforces our reverence. . . . Its style, in accordance with its contents and aim is stern, grand, terrible - ever and anon truly sublime - Thus this book will go on exercising through all ages a most potent influence.”
“In all times it is only individuals that have advanced science, not the age.”
“All ages have said and repeated that one should strive to know one's self. This is a strange demand which no one up to now has measured up to and, strictly considered, no one should. With all their study and effort, people are directed to what is outside, to the world about them, and they are kept busy coming to know this and to master it to the extent that their purposes require. . . . How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to. And what is your duty? Whatever the day calls for.”
“Error is acceptable as long as we are young; but one must not drag it along into old age.”
“Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.”
“Love grants in a moment what toil can hardly acheive in an age.”
“The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.”
“People always fancy that we must become old to become wise; but, in truth, as years advance, it is hard to keep ourselves as wise as we were.”
“Beware of wishing for anything in youth, because you will get it in middle age.”
“One needs only to get old to become milder; I don't see anyone make a mistake I hadn't also made.”
“The brilliant passes, like the dew at morn; The true endures, for ages yet unborn.”
“It would not be worth your while to reach the age of seventy if all the wisdom of the world were to be foolishness before God.”
“National literature does not mean much these days; now is the age of world literature, and every one must contribute to hasten thearrival of that age.”
“It doesn't behoove elderly persons to follow fashion in their thinking nor in the way they dress.”

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