Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Thought Quotes

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There's nothing clever that hasn't been thought of before — you've just got to try to think it all over again.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Who can think wise or stupid things at all that were not thought already in the past.
[Ger., Wer kann was Dummes, wer was Kluges denken,
Das nicht die Vorwelt schon gedacht.]

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
There are not a few problems in the natural sciences of which a man cannot speak justly without calling metaphysics to his aid; not technical words about knowing and being, such as make a show in the schools, but that wisdom of thought which was before all physics, lives with it, and will endure after it.

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

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
Man knows himself only insofar as he knows the world, becoming aware of it if only within himself, and of himself self only within it. Each new subject, well observed, opens up within us a new organ of thought.

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
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
Mediocrity has no greater consolation than in the thought that genius is not immortal.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It's exactly where a thought is lacking
That, just in time, a word shows up instead.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Everything clever has been thought of before. We must try to think it again.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
But who will dare to speak the truth out clear? The few who anything of truth have learned, And foolishly did not keep truth concealed, Their thoughts and visions to the common herd revealed, Since time began we've crucified and burned

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Yes! to this thought I hold with firm persistence;
The last result of wisdom stamps it true;
He only earns his freedom and existence
Who daily conquers them anew.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If you have a great work in your head, nothing else thrives near it; all other thoughts are repelled, and the pleasure of life itself is for the time lost.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I have often felt a bitter sorrow at the thought of the German people, which is so estimable in the individual and so wretched in the generality. A comparison of the German people with other peoples arouses a painful feeling, which I try to overcome in every possible way.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What wise or stupid thing can man conceive
That was not thought of in ages long ago?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take firm root in our personal experience.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Great thoughts and a pure heart, that is what we should ask from God.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Without my attempts in natural science, I should never have learned to know mankind such as it is. In nothing else can we so closely approach pure contemplation and thought, so closely observe the errors of the senses and of the understanding, the weak and strong points of character.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe