Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

625 Sourced Quotes

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

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Analogy has two errors to fear - the one when it contents itself with being serviceable to wit, in which case it floats away in futile sport; the other, when it shrouds itself in tropes and similes: this last is the less dangerous of the two.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The soul of man is like to water; from Heaven it cometh, to Heaven it riseth
And then returning to earth, forever alternating.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The world is so great and rich, and life so full of variety, that you can never lack occasions for poems.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A man may twist as he pleases, and do what he pleases, but he inevitably comes back to the track to which nature has destined him.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Medicine's spirit one can grasp with ease. The great and little world you study though To let things finally their course pursue As God may please.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We live in her midst and know her not. She is incessantly speaking to us, but betrays not her secret. We constantly act upon her, and yet have no power over her.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To appear at church every Sunday; to look down upon, and let himself be looked at for an hour by the congregation, is the best means of becoming popular which can be recommended to a young sovereign.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
She has always thought and always thinks; though not as a man, but as Nature. She broods over an all-comprehending idea, which no searching can find out.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Whoso shrinks from ideas ends by having nothing but sensations.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Ignorant people raise questions which were answered by the wise thousands of years ago.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A school may be regarded as a single individual who talks to himself for a hundred years, and takes an extraordinary pleasure in his own being, however, foolish and silly it may be.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The written word has this advantage, that it lasts and can await the time when it is allowed to take effect.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Authority - the fact, namely, that something has already happened or been said or decided, is of great value; but it is only a pedant who demands authority for everything.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The first look at the world, by the mind's eye, as well as by the bodily organs of vision, conveys no distinct impression, either to our heads or to our hearts. We see things without perceiving them, and it takes a long time before we learn to understand the things we see.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Superstition is a part of the very being of humanity; and when we fancy that we are banishing it altogether, it takes refuge in the strangest nooks and corners, and then suddenly comes forth again, as soon as it believes itself at all safe.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Higher aims are in themselves more valuable, even if unfulfilled, than lower ones quite attained.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To err is to be as though truth did not exist. To lay bare the error to oneself and others is retrospective discovery.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Your mind will shortly be set aright, When you have learned, all things reducing, To classify them for your using.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I hate all explanations; they who make them deceive either themselves or the other party,-generally both.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A man must cling to the belief that the incomprehensible is comprehensible; otherwise he would not try to fathom it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The world is for thousands a freak show; the images flicker past and vanish; the impressions remain flat and unconnected in the soul. Thus they are easily led by the opinions of others, are content to let their impressions be shuffled and rearranged and evaluated differently.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We might well mention from our perspective, that there are advantages to entering a field of science which is in a state of crisis, and in which we also find an active, extraordinary person. We are young with young methods, our beginnings reach into a new epoch.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe