Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Mind Quotes

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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
It is a calamity that the use of experiment has severed nature from man, so that he is content to understand nature merely through what artificial instruments reveal and by so doing even restricts her achievements... Microscopes and telescopes, in actual fact, confuse man's innate clarity of mind.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In order to depict nature in its exalted sublimity, we must not dwell exclusively on its external manifestations, but we must trace its image, reflected in the mind of man, at one time filling the dreamy land of physical myths with forms of grace and beauty, and at another developing the noble germ of artistic creations.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for them, and he patiently suffers much for them; but he becomes impatient if he is required to give them up.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Ethics are not the result of reflection; they are beautiful nature, created and innate. In a greater or lesser degree they are Nature's gift to all; in a high degree they belong to a few highly-gifted minds.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A mind, once formed, is never suited after,
One yet in growth will ever grateful be.
[Ger., Wer fertig ist, dem ist nichts recht zu machen,
Ein Werdender wird immer dankbar sein.]

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

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
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
The longer I live, the more it grieves me to see man, who occupies his supreme place for the very purpose of imposing his will upon nature, and freeing himself and his from an outrageous necessity--to see him taken up with some false notion, and doing just the opposite of what he wants to do; and then, because the whole bent of his mind is spoilt, bungling miserably over everything.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When she sees the leaves fall, they raise no other idea in her mind than that winter is approaching.

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

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
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
Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in even greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen itself as much as it desires: beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it shines forth in the Gospels, it will not go.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The finished man, you know, is difficult to please; a growing mind will ever show you gratitude.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Piety is not an end but a means to attain by the greatest peace of mind the highest degree of culture.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A burgher may acquire merit; by excessive efforts he may even educate his mind; but his personal qualities are lost, or worse than lost, let him struggle as he will. Since the nobleman, frequenting the society of the most polished, is compelled to give himself a polished manner; since this manner, neither door nor gate being shut against him, grows at last an unconstrained one; since, in court or camp, his figure, his person, are a part of his possessions, and it may be the most necessary part, — he has reason enough to put some value on them, and to show that he puts some.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It is in vain that a man of sound mind and cool temper understands the condition of such a wretched being... He can no more communicate his own wisdom to him than a healthy man can instil his strength into the invalid by whose bedside he is seated.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I have found a paper of mine among some others in which I call architecture 'petrified music.' Really there is something in this; the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of music.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe