A Quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Man's highest merit always is, as much as possible, to rule external circumstances and as little as possible to let himself be ruled by them.
Related Quotes
There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.
True Love comes into being when you practice the highest possible love in the lowest possible place. There you deal with impossible people and try to raise them into the highest possible people by showing them the highest possible standard. There is where True Love can be found and can start.
An exhausted man is much more than a weary man. Does he exhaust the possible because he is himself exhausted, or is he exhausted because he has exhausted the possible? He exhausts himself by exhausting the possible, and inversely.
God has entrusted me with myself. No man is free who is not master of himself. A man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things. The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.
Because, you see, God - whatever anyone chooses to call God - is one's highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it.
The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.
To be united with Me in total dedication to My highest will protects the soul from forces of destruction. There is no safety in external circumstances. The only shield for the spirit of man is My presence. It is written, "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them."
We must forgive each other our arising, for our existence always torments others. The golden rule in the midst of this mutual misery has always been, not to do no harm, but as little as possible; and not to love one another, but as much as you can.
Government should be good for the liberty of the governed, and that is when it governs to the least possible degree. It should be good for the wealth of the nation, and that is when it acts as little as possible upon the labor that produces it and when it consumes as little as possible. It should be good for the public security, and that is when it protects as much as possible, provided that the protection does not cost more than it brings in.... It is in losing their powers of action that governments improve. Each time that the governed gain space there is progress.
In spite of all these disquieting triumphs in the field of natural science, it's astonishing how little man has learned about himself, and how much there is to learn. How little we know about this brain which made social evolution possible, and of the mind. How little we know of the nature and spirit of man and God. We stand now before this inner frontier of ignorance. If we could pass it, we might well discover the meaning of life and understand man's destiny.
Eloquence is the art of saying as little as possible but making it sound as much as possible.
I don't think we're capable of knowledge, but I like to keep an open mind. So if you ask me whether I believe in an afterlife or not, whether I believe in God or not, I can only answer you that all things are possible. And if all things are possible, heaven and hell and the angels are also possible. They're not to be ruled out.
There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
The simplest and shortest ethical precept is to be served as little as possible . . . and to serve others as much as possible.
That every person is desirous to obtain, with as little sacrifice as possible, as much as possible of the articles of wealth.
All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: it's one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him... One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them.
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