Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – 87 Quotes

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87 Quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Age merely shows what children we remain.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Error is acceptable as long as we are young but one must not drag it along into old age.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

This is the highest wisdom that I own freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I call architecture frozen music.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In art the best is good enough.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

He who possesses art and science has religion he who does not possess them, needs religion.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If I love you, what business is it of yours?

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Science arose from poetry… when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A useless life is an early death.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

An unused life is an early death.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Death is a commingling of eternity with time in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Great thoughts and a pure heart, that is what we should ask from God.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We can’t form our children on our own concepts we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To rule is easy, to govern difficult.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Few people have the imagination for reality.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Doubt grows with knowledge.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I love those who yearn for the impossible.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Love can do much, but duty more.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Love does not dominate it cultivates.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Girls we love for what they are young men for what they promise to be.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There is a courtesy of the heart it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

On all the peaks lies peace.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Superstition is the poetry of life.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Devote each day to the object then in time and every evening will find something done.