Johann Goethe Quotes & Sayings

Then to the depths! - I could as well say height: It's all the same. — 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

Mystery is truth's dancing partner. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Live dangerously and you live right. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

What's done is yet to come. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Every reader, if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Whatever Nature undertakes, she can only accomplish it in a sequence. She never makes a leap. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Certain faults are necessary to the individual if he is to exist. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

What you have inherited from your fathers, earn over again for yourselves, or it will not be yours. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Favour, as a symbol of sovereignty, is exercised by weak men. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Not all that is presented to us as history has really happened; and what really happened did not actually happen the way it is presented to us; moreover, what really happened is only a small part of all that happened. Everything in history remains uncertain, the largest events as well as the smallest occurrence. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

When scholars study a thing, they strive to kill it first, if it's alive; then they have the parts and the'be lost the whole, for the link that's missing was the living soul. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Translators can be considered as busy matchmakers who praise as extremely desirable a half-veiled beauty. They arouse an irresistible yearning for the original. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

When you take a man as he is, you make him worse. When you take a man as he can be, you make him better. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Superstition is the poetry of life. It is inherent in man's nature; and when we think it is wholly eradicated, it takes refuge in the strangest holes and corners, whence it peeps out all at once, as soon as it can do it with safety. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The little that is completed, vanishes from the sight of one who looks forward to what is still to do. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

There is but one poetry,
true poetry. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

O my Charlotte, the sacred, tender remembrance! Gracious Heaven! restore to me the happy moment of our first acquaintance.
I smile at the suggestions of my heart, and obey its dictates.
their hearts do not beat in unison
I turned my face away. She should not act thus. She ought not to excite my imagination with such displays of heavenly innocence and happiness, nor awaken my heart from its slumbers, in which it dreams of the worthlessness of life! And why not? Because she knows how much I love her.
I possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. I possess so much, but without her I have nothing.
My dear friend, my energies are all prostrated: she can do with me what she pleases. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Colors are light's suffering and joy — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

One glance, one word from you gives more pleasure than all the wisdom of this world. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Certain books seem to be written, not that we might learn from them, but in order that we might see how much the author knows. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Wisdom is only found in truth. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

He who is wise puts aside all claims which may dissipate his attention, and confining himself to one branch excels in that. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It is impossible that beauty should ever distinctly appreciate itself. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It is in the half fools and the half wise that the greatest danger lies. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

When the boy begins to understand that the visible point is preceded by an invisible point, that the shortest distance between two points is conceived as a straight line before it is ever drawn with pencil and paper ... the fountain of all thought has been opened to him ... the philosopher can reveal him nothing new, as a geometrician he has discovered the basis of all thought. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Is not the core of nature in the heart of man? — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I can promise to be sincere, but I cannot promise to be impartial. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

To live as one likes is plebian the noble man aspires to order and law. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Our passions are true phoenixes; as the old burn out the new straight rise up from the ashes. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A man's foibles are what makes him lovable. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

What I have lately said of painting is equally true with respect to poetry. It is only necessary for us to know what is really excellent, and venture to give it expression; and that is saying much in few words. To-day I have had a scene, which, if literally related, would, make the most beautiful idyl in the world. But why should I talk of poetry and scenes and idyls? Can we never take pleasure in nature without having recourse to art? — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

You are certainly wrong to compare suicide ... with great accomplishments, since it cannot be considered as anything but a weakness. After all, it is easier to die than to endure a harrowing life with fortitude. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

If ever the Divine appeared on earth, it was in the person of Christ. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

No: ill-humour arises from an inward consciousness of our own want of merit, from a discontent which ever accompanies that envy which foolish vanity engenders. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

What is part of you, you cannot get rid of, even if you were to throw it away. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Self-love exaggerates our faults as well as our virtues. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

To the man of thought almost nothing is really ridiculous. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Error is to truth as sleep is to waking. I have observed that one turns, as if refreshed, from error back to truth. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

That which issues from the heart alone,
Will bend the hearts of others to your own. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Men are much more apt to agree in what they do than in what they think. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Suffer or triumph, be the hammer or the anvil. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

There are men who love their like and seek it; others love their opposite and follow after it. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

One needs only to get old to become milder; I don't see anyone make a mistake I hadn't also made. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

He who does not think much of himself is much more esteemed than he imagines. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Do they know when we are well and happy? do they know when we recall their memories with the fondest love? In the silent hour of evening the shade of my mother hovers around me; when seated in the midst of my children, I see them assembled near me, as they used to assemble near her; and then I raise my anxious eyes to heaven, and wish she could look down upon us, and witness how I fulfil the promise I made to her in her last moments, to be a mother to her children. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Ill-humor is nothing more than an inward feeling of our own want of merit, a dissatisfaction with ourselves which is always united with an envy that foolish vanity excites. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

MARGARETE. Yes, out of sight is out of mind. It's second nature with you, gallantry; But you have friends of every kind, Cleverer by far, oh much, than me. FAUST. Dear girl, believe me, what's called cleverness Is mostly shallowness and vanity. — 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

Music is either sacred or profane. What is sacred accords completely with its nobility, and this is where music most immediately influences life; such influence remains unchanged at all times and in every epoch. Profane music should be altogether cheerful.
Music of a kind that mixes the sacred with the profane is godless and shoddy music wich goes in for expressing feeble, wretched, deplorable feelings, and is just insipid. For it is not serious enough to be sacred and it lacks the chief quality of the opposite kind: cheerfulness. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Passions are defects or virtues in the highest power. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Rash, inexperienced youth holds itself a chosen instrument, and allows itself unbounded license. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Art is a mediator of the unspeakable. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Nature has neither core nor skin: she's both at once outside and in. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Theories are usually the over-hasty efforts of an impatient understanding that would gladly be rid of phenomena, and so puts in their place pictures, notions, nay, often mere words. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

People can only live with their equals, and not even with them; for in the long run they cannot tolerate that someone is their equal. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

To have your every wish, desire, Wake, regard the glorious light! What holds you bound is a mild power, Sleep's a shell, break out of it! Up, no lagging, boldly does it; Though the crowd doubts and delays, All's possible to a brave spirit 4830 Who sees, and seeing's quick to seize. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Our foibles are really what make us lovable. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

They make life unnecessarily difficult for themselves by looking for deep thoughts and ideas everywhere and putting them into everything. just have the courage to
give yourself up to first impressions..don't think all the time that
everything must be pointless if it lacks an abstract thought or idea — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Hypotheses are only the pieces of scaffolding which are erected round a building during the course of construction, and which are taken away as soon as the edifice is completed. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

We rather confess our moral errors, faults, and crimes than our ignorance. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

O, may you look, full moon that shines, On my pain for this last time: So many midnights from my desk, I have seen you, keeping watch: When over my books and paper, [390] Saddest friend, you appear! Ah! If on the mountain height I might stand in your sweet light, Float with spirits in mountain caves, Swim the meadows in twilight' waves, [395] Free from the smoke of knowledge too, Bathe in your health-giving dew! — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The mind is found most acute and most uneasy in the morning. Uneasiness is, indeed, a species of sagacity - a passive sagacity. Fools are never uneasy. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

If you inquire what people are like here, I must answer, "The same as everywhere." — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The trouble is small, the fun is great. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Man needs but little earth for enjoyment, and still less for his final
repose. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I am not omniscient, but I know a lot. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The loss of a much-prized treasure is only half felt when we have not regarded its tenure as secure. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Nothing is more dangerous than solitude. — 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

One errs as long as one strives. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Nature! We live in her midst and know her not. She is incessantly speaking to us, but betrays not her secret. We constantly act upon her, and yet have no power over her. Variant: NATURE! We are surrounded and embraced by her: powerless to separate ourselves from her, and powerless to penetrate beyond her. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Just take a look at our patrons, and you'll know
Some don't appreciate us, others never will. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

For true art there is no such thing as preparatory schooling, but there are certainly preparations; the best, however, is when the least pupil takes a share in master's work. Colour-grinders have turned into very good artists. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Some books seem to have been written, not to teach us anything, but to let us know that the author has known something. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It is a maxim of wise government to treat people not as they should be but as they actually are. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The universal subjugator, the commonplace. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again. — 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

Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A distracted existence leads us to no goal — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Dear me! how long is art!
And short is our life!
I often know amid the scholar's strife
A sinking feeling in my mind and heart.
How difficult the means are to be found
By which the primal sources may be breached;
And long before the halfway point is reached,
They bury a poor devil in the ground. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It would not be worth your while to reach the age of seventy if all the wisdom of the world were to be foolishness before God. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

True religion teaches us to reverence what is under us, to recognize humility and poverty, and, despite mockery and disgrace, wretchedness, suffering, and death, as things divine. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Any trifle is enough to entertain two lovers. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Everything that we call Invention or Discovery in the higher sense of the word is the serious exercise and activity of an original feeling for truth, which, after a long course of silent cultivation, suddenly flashes out into fruitful knowledge. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It is opposition that makes us productive. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

They should be ashamed of themselves, all these sober people! — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Du hast so viele Leben, wie du Sprachen sprichst. (You have as many lives as the number of languages you speak.) — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I think of you when upon the sea the sun flings her beams.
I think of you when the moonlight shines in silvery streams.
I see you when upon the distant hills the dust awakes;
At night when on a fragile bridge the traveler quakes.
I hear you when the billows rise on high,
With murmur deep.
To tread the silent grove where wander I,
When all's asleep. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The world sees only the reflection of merit; therefore when you come to know a really great man intimately, you may as often find him above as below his reputation. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

He who cannot love must learn to flatter. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe