Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

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He who maintains he's right—if his the gift of tongues — Will have the last word certainly.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
No two men see the world exactly alike, and different temperaments will apply in different ways a principle that they both acknowledge. The same man will, indeed, often see and judge the same things differently on different occasions: early convictions must give way to more mature ones. Nevertheless, may not the opinions that a man holds and expresses withstand all trials, if he only remains true to himself and others?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Everything that liberates our mind without at the same time imparting self-control is pernicious.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Do you wish to roam farther and farther?
See! The Good lies so near.
Only learn to seize good fortune,
For good fortune's always here.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What is now the foliage moving?
Air is still, and hush'd the breeze,
Sultriness, this fullness loving,
Through the thicket, from the trees.
Now the eye at once gleams brightly,
See! the infant band with mirth
Moves and dances nimbly, lightly,
As the morning gave it birth,
Flutt'ring two and two o'er earth.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A school of art or of anything else is to be looked on as a single individual, who keeps talking to himself for a hundred years, and feels an extreme satisfaction with his own circle of favorite ideas, be they ever so silly.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A vain man can never be altogether rude. Desirous as he is of pleasing, he fashions his manners after those of others.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The desire of knowledge is first stimulated in us when remarkable phenomena attract our attention. In order that this attention be continued it is necessary that we should feel some interest in exercising it, and thus by degrees we become better acquainted with the object of our curiosity.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Thou art in the end what thou art. Put on wigs with millions of curls, set thy foot upon ell-high rocks. Thou abidest ever--what thou art.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If a man devotes himself to the promotion of science, he is firstly opposed, and then he is informed that his ground is already occupied. At first men will allow no value to what we tell them, and then they behave as if they knew it all themselves.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
No hypothesis can lay claim to any value unless it assembles many phenomena under one concept.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Certain faults are necessary to the individual if he is to exist.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The present age has a bad habit of being abstruse in the sciences. We remove ourselves from common sense without opening up a higher one; we become transcendent, fantastic, fearful of intuitive perception in the real world, and when we wish to enter the practical realm, or need to, we suddenly turn atomistic and mechanical.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The church alone beyond all question Has for ill-gotten goods the right digestion.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
As for solitude, I cannot understand how certain people seek to lay claim to intellectual stature, nobility of soul and strength of character, yet have not the slightest feeling for seclusion; for solitude, I maintain, when joined with a quiet contemplation of nature, a serene and conscious faith in creation and the Creator, and a few vexations from outside is the only school for a mind of lofty endowment.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Like the star that shines afar, Without haste and without rest, Let each one wheel with steady sway Round the task that rules the day, And do their best.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What sort of faults may we retain, nay, even cherish in ourselves? Those faults which are rather pleasant than offensive to others.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Do people conform to the instructions of us old ones? Each thinks he must know best about himself, and thus many are lost entirely.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Beauty and Genius must be kept afar if one would avoid becoming their slave.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It is a misfortune to pass at once from observation to conclusion, and to regard both as of equal value; but it befalls many a student.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A museum of natural history always seems to me like the tombs of Egyptian kings, in which various sorts of beasts and plants are preserved in mummified rigidity.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The child, offered the mother's breast, Will not in the beginning grab it; But soon it clings to it with zest. And thus at wisdom's copious breasts You'll drink each day with greater zest.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Applied to practice, it [mathematics] becomes an art, like RHETORIC. In both these arts the form is everything, the substance nothing. To mathematics it is indifferent whether it reckons pence or pounds; to RHETORIC, whether it defends truth or falsehood.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
With little art, clear wit and sense Suggest their own delivery.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We shall never succeed in exhausting the immeasurable riches of nature; and no generation of men will ever have cause to boast of having comprehended the total aggregation of phenomena.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Natural system — a contradiction in terms. Nature has no system; she has, she is life and its progress from an unknown center toward an unknowable goal. Scientific research is therefore endless, whether one proceed analytically into minutiae or follow the trail as a whole, in all its breadth and height.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The world of reason is to be regarded as a great and immortal being, who ceaselessly works out what is necessary, and so makes himself lord also over what is accidental.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The man who acts never has any conscience; no one has any conscience but the man who thinks

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Four epochs of science: childlike, poetic, superstitious; empirical, searching, curious; dogmatic, didactic, pedantic; ideal, methodical, mystical.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe