Goethe's Daring Ideas

If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I have possessed that heart, that noble soul, in whose presence I seemed to be more than I really was, because I was all that I could be.
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe