Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

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

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

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Rash combat oft immortalizes man; if he should fall, he is renowned in song; but after-ages reckon not the ceaseless tears which the forsaken woman sheds. Poets tell us not of the many nights consumed in weeping, or of the dreary days wherein her anguished soul vainly yearns to call her loved one back.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
There are three classes of readers; some enjoy without judgment; others judge without enjoyment; and some there are who judge while they enjoy, and enjoy while they judge. The latter class reproduces the work of art on which it is engaged. Its numbers are very small.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Thinking by analogy is not to be despised. Analogy has this merit, that it does not settle things - does not pretend to be conclusive. On the other hand, that induction is pernicious which, with a preconceived end in view, and working right forward for only that, drags in its train a number of unsifted observations, both false and true.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We don't get to know people when they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are like.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I hate every violent overthrow, because as much is destroyed as is gained by it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Her crown is love. Through love alone dare we come near her. She separates all existences, and all tend to intermingle. She has isolated all things in order that all may approach one another. She holds a couple of draughts from the cup of love to be fair payment for the pains of a lifetime.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Whoever makes it a rule to test action by thought, thought by action, cannot falter, and if he does, will soon find his way back to the right road.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nature! We are surrounded by her and locked in her clasp: powerless to leave her, and powerless to come closer to her. Unasked and unwarned she takes us up into the whirl of her dance, and hurries on with us till we are weary and fall from her arms.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To venture an opinion is like moving a piece at chess: it may be taken, but it forms the beginning of a game that is won.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Culture which smooth the whole world licks, Also unto the devil sticks.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
With little wit and ease to suit them, They whirl in narrow circling trails, Like kittens playing with their tails.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
So dear night the half of life is, And the fairest half indeed.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Every man bears something within him that, if it were publicly announced, would excite feelings of aversion.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The assault of our enemies is not part of our life; it is only part of our experience; we throw it off and guard ourselves against it as against frost, storm, rain, hail, or any other of the external evils which may be expected to happen.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It is not always needful for truth to take a definite shape; it is enough if it hovers about us like a spirit and produces harmony; if it is wafted through the air like the sound of a bell, grave and kindly.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night, nearer yet and nearer rising to the light - light, serene and holy where my soul may rest, purified and lowly, sanctified and blest.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Mannerism is always longing to have done, and has no true enjoyment in work. A genuine, really great talent, on the other hand, has its greatest happiness in execution.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A well-bred carriage is difficult to imitate; for in strictness it is negative, and it implies a long-continued previous training.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Germans — and they are not alone in this — have a knack of making the sciences unapproachable.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It is a great error to take oneself for more than one is, or for less than one is worth.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It used to happen, and still happens, to me to take no pleasure in a work of art at the first sight of it, because it is too much for me; but if I suspect any merit in it, I try to get at it; and then I never fail to make the most gratifying discoveries--to find new qualities in the work itself and new faculties in myself.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Life seems so vulgar, so easily content with the commonplace things of every day, and yet it always nurses and cherishes certain higher claims in secret, and looks about for the means of satisfying them.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe