Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

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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
A man's name is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him...but a perfectly fitting garment, which, like the skin, has grown over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape without injuring the man himself.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If thou wouldst hear what seemly is and fit, inquire of noble woman; they can tell, who in life's common usage hold their place by graceful deed and aptly chosen word.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He who only tastes his error will long dwell with it, will take delight in it as in a singular felicity; while he who drains it to the dregs will, if he be not crazy, find it to be what it is.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A crisis must necessarily arise when a field of knowledge matures enough to become a science, for those who focus on details and treat them as separate will be set against those who have their eye on the universal and try to fit the particular into it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nature, in her process of specification, seems to get, so to speak, into a cul de sac, where she cannot advance, and whence she will not recede.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Wood burns because it has the proper stuff for that purpose in it; and a man becomes renowned because he has the necessary stuff in him. Renown is not to be sought, and all pursuit of it is vain. A person may, indeed, by skillful conduct and various artificial means, make a sort of name for himself; but if the inner jewel is wanting, all is vanity, and will not last a day.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To communicate knowledge by means of analogy appears to me a process equally useful and pleasant. The analogous case is not there to force itself on the attention or prove anything; it offers a comparison with some other cases, but it is not in union with it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Hypotheses are lullabies for teachers to sing their students to sleep.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nothing is more odious than the majority, for it consists of a few powerful leaders, a certain number of accommodating scoundrels and submissive weaklings, and a mass of men who trot after them without thinking, or knowing their own minds.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Men's prejudices rest upon their character for the time being and cannot be overcome, as being part and parcel of themselves. Neither evidence nor common sense nor reason has the slightest influence upon them.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Fools and wise men are equally harmless. It is the half-fools and half-wise that are dangerous.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I receive mathematics as the most sublime and useful science, so long as they are applied in their proper place; but I cannot commend the misuse of them in matters which do not belong to their sphere, and in which, noble science as they are, they seem to be mere nonsense.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Every bird has its decoy, and every man is led and misled in his own peculiar way.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Every decided colour does a certain violence to the eye, and forces the organ to opposition.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A state of true and universal tolerance is best ensured by leaving alone the peculiarities of men and peoples.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Reason is applied to what is developing, practical understanding to what is developed. The former does not ask, What is the Purpose? and the latter does not ask, What is the source? Reason takes pleasure in development; practical understanding tries to hold things fast so that it can use them.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Generally speaking, an author's style is a faithful copy of his mind. If you would write a lucid style, let there first be light in your own mind; and if you would write a grand style, you ought to have a grand character.

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
Necessity is cruel, but it is the only test of inward strength. Every fool may live according to his own likings.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe