Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

625 Sourced Quotes

There is no permanence in doubt; it incites the mind to closer inquiry and experiment, from which, if rightly managed, certainty proceeds, and in this alone can man find thorough satisfaction.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Don't say that you want to give, but go ahead and give! You'll never catch up with a mere hope.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Who longs in solitude to live, Ah! soon his wish will gain: Men hope and love, men get and give, and leave him to his pain.

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
For the rest of it, the last and greatest art is to limit and isolate oneself.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I treat my heart like a sick child and gratify its every fancy

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The fate of the architect is the strangest of all. How often he expends his whole soul, his whole heart and passion, to produce buildings into which he himself may never enter.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Once more I am a wanderer, a pilgrim, through the world. But what else are you?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What dazzles, for the Moment spends its spirit:
What's genuine, shall Posterity inherit.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
You often say to yourself in the course of your life that you ought to avoid having too much business, 'polypragmosyne' [incessant activity], and, more especially, that the older you get, the more you ought to avoid entering on new business. But it's all very well saying this, and giving yourself andothers good advice. The very fact of growing older means taking up a new business; all our circumstances change, and we must either stop doing anything at all or else willing and consciously take on the new role we have to play on life's stage.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Behaviour is a mirror in which everyone shows his image.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Wine rejoices the heart of man and joy is the mother of all virtues.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Every man has enough power left to carry out that of which he is convinced.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
You ask which form of government is the best? Whichever teaches us to govern ourselves.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I am amazed to see how deliberately I have entangled myself step by step. To have seen my position so clearly, and yet to have acted so like a child!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one's hands full just to be able to remove their trash.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honour or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
How many years must a man do nothing, before he can at all know what is to be done and how to do it!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
How can we learn self-knowledge? Never by taking thought but rather by action. Try to do your duty and you'll soon discover what you're like.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Genius is formed in quiet, character in the stream of human life.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Association with women is the basic element of good manners.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
From inaccessible mountain range by way of desert untrod by human foot to the ends of the unknown seas, the breath of the everlasting creative spirit is felt, rejoicing over every speck of dust that hearkens to it and lives.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Theories usually result from the precipitate reasoning of an impatient mind which would like to be rid of phenomena and replaces them with images, concepts, indeed often with mere words.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I love those who yearn for the impossible.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Who wants to understand the poem
Must go to the land of poetry;
Who wishes to understand the poet
Must go to the poet's land.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A life without love, without the presence of the beloved, is nothing but a mere magic-lantern show. We draw out slide after slide, swiftly tiring of each, and pushing it back to make haste for the next.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
This is wisdom's final thought:
Freedom alone he earns as well as life
Who day by day must conquer them anew.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If we meet someone who owes us a debt of gratitude, we remember the fact at once. How often we can meet someone to whom we owe a debt of gratitude without thinking about it at all!

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
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