Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

The joy of a strong nature is as cloudless as its suffering is desolate.

You are the makers of your own fortunes. You make yourselves suffer, you make good and evil, and it is you who put your hands before your eyes and say it is dark. Take your hands away and see the light.

I will laugh at the world! Never will I allow myself to become so important, so wise, so dignified, so powerful, that I forget how to laugh at myself and my world.And so long as I can Laugh never will I be poor

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

We are all the walking wounded in a world that is a war zone. Everything we love will be taken from us, everything, last of all life itself. Yet everywhere I look, I find great beauty in this battlefield, and grace and the promise of joy.

Happy the heart to whom God has given enough strength and courage to suffer for Him, to find happiness in simplicity and the happiness of others.

The highest strength is acquired not in overcoming the world, but in overcoming one's self. Learn to be cruel to thyself, to withstand thy appetites, to bear thy sufferings, and thou shalt become free and able.

The only thing that really teaches one what life's about the joy of understanding, the joy of coming in contact with what life really signifies - is suffering, affliction.

Happiness comes, I know, from some spring within a man — from some curious adjustment to life.

Now you see how you are, the wisdom mixed in with all the scars.

I exist, I am, I am here, I am becoming, I make my own life and no one else makes it for me. I must face my own shortcomings, mistakes, transgressions. No one can suffer my non-being as I do, but tomorrow is another day, and I must decide to leave my bed and live again. And if I fail, I don't have the comfort of blaming you or life or God.

Hell is the opposite of joy. It is unfulfillment. It is knowing Who and What You Are, and failing to experience that. It is being less.

It's an inside job to learn about forgiving, it's an inside job to hang on to the joy of living.

Live with it. You live with pleasure, don't you? Why don't you live with suffering completely? Can you live with it in the sense of not escaping from it? What takes place? Watch. The mind is very clear, sharp. It is faced with the fact. The very suffering transformed into passion is enormous. From that arises a mind that can never be hurt. Full stop. That is the secret.

Suffering is the pain of constraints. An atom of pure delight, no matter how small, can hold it at bay.

seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space

The cavity which suffering carves into our souls will one day also be the receptacle of joy.

We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And, indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again." ~Fiddler, pg. 558

There is a certain kind of maturity that can be attained only through the discipline of suffering.

The thorn is a bridge spanning the muddy depths of agony and sorrow so that one may on the other side dance to the drums of the rose of joy.

Empowerment is the inner joy of knowing that external force isn't necessary to be at harmony with oneself.

Joy is a mystery because it can happen anywhere, anytime, even under the most unpromising circumstances, even in the midst of suffering, with tears in its eyes.

Suffering cheerfully endured, ceases to be suffering and is transmuted into an ineffable joy.

Without an awareness of our feelings we cannot experience compassion. How can we share the sufferings and the joys of others if we cannot experience our own?

Live in joy, luminosity, and peace even among the troubles of the world. Remember who you are.