Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

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What a master a man would be in his own subject if he taught nothing useless!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If a man sets out to study all the laws, he will have no time left to transgress them.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nothing is good for a nation but that which arises from its own core and its own general wants, without apish imitation of another.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Since nothing is so important to people as their opinions, everyone who propounds an opinion looks about him right and left for props with which to support it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
She rejoices in illusion. Whoso destroys it in himself and others, him she punishes with the sternest tyranny. Whoso follows her in faith, him she takes as a child to her bosom.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In all things, to serve from the lowest station upwards is necessary. To restrict yourself to a trade is best. For the narrow mind, whatever he attempts is still a trade; for the higher, an art; and the highest in doing one thing does all, or, to speak less paradoxically, in the one thing which he does rightly he sees the likeness of all that is done rightly.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We all walk in mysteries. We are surrounded by an atmosphere about which we still know nothing at all.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Mere communion with nature, mere contact with the free air, exercise a soothing yet strengthening influence on the wearied spirit, calm the storm of passion, and soften the heart when shaken by sorrow to its inmost depths.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Cursed Mammon be, when he with treasures To restless action spurs our fate! Cursed when for soft, indulgent leisures, He lays for us the pillows straight.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Mineralogy is a science for the Understanding, for practical life; for its subjects are something dead which cannot rise again, and there is no room for synthesis.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Man knows himself only insofar as he knows the world, becoming aware of it if only within himself, and of himself self only within it. Each new subject, well observed, opens up within us a new organ of thought.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
She creates needs because she loves action. Wondrous! that she produces all this action so easily. Every need is a benefit, swiftly satisfied, swiftly renewed. Every fresh want is a new source of pleasure, but she soon reaches an equilibrium.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
That which is most unnatural is still Nature; the stupidest philistinism has a touch of her genius. Whoso cannot see her everywhere, sees her nowhere rightly.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Children, like dogs, have so sharp and fine a scent that they detect and hunt out everything--the bad before all the rest. They also know well enough how this or that friend stands with their parents; and as they practice no dissimulation whatever, they serve as excellent barometers by which to observe the degree of favor or disfavor at which we stand with their parents.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
People will allow their faults to be shown them; they will let themselves be punished for them; they will patiently endure many things because of them; they only become impatient when they have to lay them aside.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The one thing she seems to aim at is Individuality; yet she cares nothing for individuals. She is always building up and destroying; but her workshop is inaccessible.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A man is not little when he finds it difficult to cope with circumstances, but when circumstances overmaster him.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognizing a truth which has already been recognized by others.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The arts are the salt of the earth; as salt relates to food, the arts relate to technology.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The sea is flowing ever, The land retains it never.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I could have never have known so well how paltry men are, and how little they care for really high aims, if I had not tested them by my scientific researches. Thus I saw that most men only care for science so far as they get a living by it, and that they worship even error when it affords them a substance.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The world of empirical morality consists for the most part of nothing but ill will and envy.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Age childish makes, they say, but 'tis not true;
We're only genuine children still in Age's season.
[Ger., Das Alter macht nicht kindisch, wie man spricht,
Es findet uns nur noch als wahre Kinder.]

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When we find facts within our knowledge exhibited by some new method, or even, it may be, described in a foreign language, they receive a peculiar charm of novelty and wear a fresh air.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Wind is the loving Wooer of waters; Wind blends together Billows all-foaming. Spirit of man, Thou art like unto water! Fortune of man, Thou art like unto wind!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe