Who Is Goethe Quotes & Sayings

To be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The happiest man is the one who finds happiness at home. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Goethe's Faust risks all if he should cry to the moment, the 'augenblick', "Verweile doch!" "Last forever!" Who hasn't prayed that prayer? But the 'augenblick' isn't going to 'verweile'. You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying; it is a canvas, nevertheless. — Annie Dillard

Few rash of any modern nation have a proper sense of an aesthetical whole; they praise and blame by parts; they are charmed by passages. And who has greater reason to rejoice in this than actors, since the stage is ever but a patched and piecemeal matter? — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

He who is and remains true to himself and to others has the most attractive quality of the greatest talent. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The day is of infinite length for him who knows how to appreciate and use it. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The world of reason is to be regarded as a great and immortal being, who ceaselessly works out what is necessary, and so makes himself lord also over what is accidental. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

One of the towering figures of the age of Enlightenment was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, known to this day in German-speaking lands as the poet of princes and prince of poets. Unlike Voltaire, he openly practiced esoteric disciplines, particularly alchemy. He wrote a famous verse about the Cathars, which translated says: "There were those who knew the Father. What became of them? Oh, they took them and burned them!" Goethe's chief work, of course, is his Faust. As noted in chapter 8, the figure of Faust was inspired by the image of the early Gnostic teacher Simon Magus, one of whose honorific names was Faustus. While in Christopher Marlowe's sixteenth-century play, — Stephan A. Hoeller

No one can take from us the joy of the first becoming aware of something, the so-called discovery. But if we also demand the honor, it can be utterly spoiled for us, for we are usually not the first. What does discovery mean, and who can say that he has discovered this or that? After all it's pure idiocy to brag about priority; for it's simply unconscious conceit, not to admit frankly that one is a plagiarist. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I really detest those people who like to draw practical conclusions from scholarly truths, who 'apply learning to real life', like engineers who turn to propositions of chemistry into insecticides for bedbugs. It translates, in Goethe's words, as: 'life is grey, but the golden tree of theory is always green'. — Antal Szerb

A resolution that is communicated is no longer within thy power; thy attentions become now the plaything of chance; he who would have his commands certainly carried out must take man by surprise. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A school of art or of anything else is to be looked on as a single individual, who keeps talking to himself for a hundred years, and feels an extreme satisfaction with his own circle of favorite ideas, be they ever so silly. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The right man is the one who seizes the moment. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

What right those who govern have to govern they don't question, they just govern. Whether the people have a right to depose them that doesn't concern them. All they are concerned with is that the people will not be tempted to depose them. — 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 clever reader who is capable or reading between these lines what does not stand written in them but is nevertheless implied will be able to form some conception. — 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

The day is for mistake and error, sequence of time for success and carrying out. The one who anticipates is master of the day. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The highest that man can attain in these matters," said Goethe, "is wonder; if the primary phenomenon causes this, let him be satisfied; more it cannot bring; and he should forbear to seek for anything further behind it: here is the limit. But the sight of a prime phenomenon is generally not enough for people. They think they must go still further; and are thus like children, who, after peeping into a mirror, turn it round directly to see what is on the other side. — Alan W. Watts

Oblivion is full of people who allow the opinions of others to overrule their belief in themselves. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I regret that I must so continually use the word genius, as if that should apply only to a caste as well defined from those below as income-tax payers are from the untaxed. The word genius was very probably invented by a man who had small claims on it himself; greater men would have understood better what to be a genius really was, and probably they would have come to see that the word could be applied to most people. Goethe said that perhaps only a genius is able to understand a genius. — Otto Weininger

To know of someone here and there whom we accord with, who is living on with us, even in silence - - this makes our earthly ball a peopled garden. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

If there is confusion in your head and in your heart, what more do you want! A man who no longer loves and no longer errs should have himself buried straight away. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Not the maker of plans and promises, but rather the one who offers faithful service in small matters. This is the person who is most likely to achieve what is good and lasting. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

When two men quarrel, who owns the cooler head is the more to blame. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The web of this world is woven of Necessity and Chance. Woe to him who has accustomed himself from his youth up to find something necessary in what is capricious, and who would ascribe something like reason to Chance and make a religion of surrendering to it. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

He is the happiest man who can see the connection between the end and the beginning of life. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

How many kings are governed by their ministers, how many ministers by their secretaries? Who, in such cases, is really the chief? — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I always seek the good that is in people and leave the bad to Him who made mankind and knows how to round off the corners. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Happy is it, indeed, for me that my heart is capable of feeling the same simple and innocent pleasure as the peasant whose table is covered with food of his own rearing, and who not only enjoys his meal, but remembers with delight the happy days and sunny mornings when he planted it, the soft evenings when he watered it, and the pleasure he experienced in watching its daily growth. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I find by this, how much an author injures his works by altering them, even though they be improved in a poetical point of view. The first impression is readily received. We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavour to efface them. — 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

He who is firm and resolute in will molds the world to himself. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I know very well that we are not all equal, nor can be so; but it is my opinion that he who avoids the common people, in order not to lose their respect, is as much to blame as a coward who hides himself from his enemy because he fears defeat. The — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

But Goethe tells us in his greatest poem that Faust lost the liberty of his soul when he said to the passing moment: "Stay, thou art so fair." And our liberty, too, is endangered if we pause for the passing moment, if we rest on our achievements, if we resist the pace of progress. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past are certain to miss the future. — John F. Kennedy

The man who masters himself is delivered from the force that binds all creatures. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

One must submit, like a traveller who has to ascend a mountain: if the mountain was not there, the road would be both shorter and pleasanter; but there it is, and he must get over it. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

He who is plenteously provided for from within needs but little from without. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

He is dead in this world who has no belief in another. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

One should not wish anyone disagreeable conditions of life; but for him who is involved in them by chance, they are touchstones of characters and of the most decisive value to man. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I observed once to Goethe that when a friend is with us we do not think the same of him as when he is away. He replied, Yes! because the absent friend is yourself, and he exists only in your head; whereas the friend who is present has an individuality of his own, and moves according to laws of his own, which cannot always be in accordance with those which you form for yourself. — Arthur Schopenhauer

...of adhering, for the future, entirely to nature. She alone is inexhaustible, and capable of forming the greatest masters. Much may be alleged in favour of rules, as much may be likewise advanced in favour of the laws of society: an artist formed upon them will never produce anything absolutely bad or disgusting; as a man who observes the laws, and obeys decorum, can never be an absolutely intolerable neighbour, nor a decided villain: but yet, say what you will of rules, they destroy the genuine feeling of nature, as well as its true expression — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Only he who finds empiricism irksome is driven to method. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

There is a world of science necessary in choosing books. I have known some people in great sorrow fly to a novel, or the last light book in fashion. One might as well take a rose-draught for the plague! Light reading does not do when the heart is really heavy. I am told that Goethe, when he lost his son, took to study a science that was new to him. Ah! Goethe was a physician who knew what he was about. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

Say what you will of fortitude, but show me the man who can patiently endure the laughter of fools when they have obtained an advantage over him. 'Tis only when their nonsense is without foundation that one can suffer it without complaint. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

This being busied with thoughts of immortality is for the noble classes and especially for women with nothing to do. A solid person, though, someone who already intends to be something worthy here, and who therefore has to strive daily, has to struggle and work, gives the world to come a rest. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

In some ways this was Goethe's greatest achievement: the search for the serial relationships in nature, emphasizing border experiences, the junctures where "the real joints of nature" are located, is most likely to reveal the process of change, development, organizing principles. This is also why it needed individuals who were both poet and scientist, who could combine "imagination, observation and thought in the act of language. — Peter Watson

The best slave is the one who thinks he is free. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Sacrifice of the self is the source of all humiliation, as also on the contrary is the foundation of all true exaltation. The first step will be an inward gaze - an isolating contemplation of ourselves. Whoever stops here has come only halfway. The second step must be an active outward gaze - autonomous, constant observation of the external world.
No one will ever achieve excellence as an artist who cannot depict anything other than his own experiences, his favorite objects, who cannot bring himself to study assiduously even a quite strange object, which does not interest him at all, and to depict it at leisure. An artist must be able and willing to depict everything. This is how a great artistic style is created, which rightly is so much admired in Goethe. — Novalis

who dignify their paltry employments, and sometimes even their passions, with pompous titles, representing them to mankind as gigantic achievements performed for their welfare and glory. But the man who humbly acknowledges the vanity of all this, who observes with what pleasure the thriving citizen converts his little garden into a paradise, and how patiently even the poor man pursues his weary way under his burden, and how all wish equally to behold the light of the sun a little longer - yes, such a man is at peace, and creates his own world within himself; and he is also happy, because he is a man. And then, however limited his sphere, he still preserves in his bosom the sweet feeling of liberty, and knows that he can quit his prison whenever he likes. May — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Is it not enough that we cannot make one another happy, must we also rob one another of the pleasures that any heart may permit itself now and then? And name me a person who in a bad mood will be decent enough to hide it, to bear it alone, without destroying the joy around him. Is it not rather an inner dissatisfaction with our own unworthiness, a dislike of ourselves that is always associated with envy aggravated by foolish conceit? We see people happy and not made happy by us, and that is unbearable. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I find myself agreeing with Goethe, who when told he too worked excessively, replied that he had all eternity to rest. Eternity is unavoidable, but until it embraces me, I shall keep myself fully consumed with living. — Marc Olden

There are people who pay attention to the weaknesses of their friends; that is to no avail. I have always closely watched and profited from the strengths of my adversaries. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Piety is not an end, but a means: a means of attaining the highest culture by the purest tranquility of soul. Hence it may be observed that those who set up piety as an end and object are mostly hypocrites. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Yet he who grasps the moment's gift, He is the proper man. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Tis Lilith.
Who?
Adam's first wife is she.
Beware the lure within her lovely tresses,
The splendid sole adornment of her hair;
When she succeeds therewith a youth to snare,
Not soon again she frees him from her jesses. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Nietzsche ... argues that all that passes in the life of a society is ephemeral and banausic except for the presence of great personalities, of men like Goethe ... who seem to forge their own destinies, who seem to move unhampered by those burdens of existence which keep most men from rising above the vicissitudes of their daily toil. — John Carroll

One who has passed the thirtieth year
already is as good as dead
it would be best to kill you off by then. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

He who would reproach an author for obscurity should look into his own mind to see whether it is quite clear there. In the dusk the plainest writing is illegible. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

He who wants to recognize what is alive and describe it, seeks first to drive the spirit out of it. Then, he holds the parts in his hands. But missing is the spirit's band. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers & cities; but to know someone who thinks & feels with us, & who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

In all our academies we attempt far too much ... In earlier times lectures were delivered upon chemistry and botany as branches of medicine, and the medical student learned enough of them. Now, however, chemistry and botany are become sciences of themselves, incapable of comprehension by a hasty survey, and each demanding the study of a whole life, yet we expect the medical student to understand them. He who is prudent, accordingly declines all distracting claims upon his time, and limits himself to a single branch and becomes expert in one thing. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Fools and wise-folk are alike harmless. It is the half-wise, and the half-foolish, who are the most dangerous. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Every individual who is not creative has a negative, narrow, exclusive taste and succeeds in depriving creative being of its energy and life. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

This is what they all come to who exclusively harp on experience. They do not stop to consider that experience is only one half of experience. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Father! Whom I do not know! Father! who filled all my soul and who has now turned His countenance away from me! Call me to You! Be silent no longer! Your silence will not stay this thirsting soul - and could a person, a father, be angry whose son, unexpectedly returning, threw himself on his neck and cried: Father! I have come back! Don't be angry that I am breaking off the travels that you meant for me to endure longer. The world is everywhere the same, in effort and work, reward and joy, but what is that to me? I am only happy where you are, and it is before your countenance that I want to suffer and enjoy. - And You, dear heavenly Father, would turn him away from You? — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The German poet Goethe once said that "he who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth." I don't want you to end up in such a sad state. I will do what I can to acquaint you with your historical roots. It is the only way to become a human being. It is the only way to become more than a naked ape. It is the only way to avoid floating in a vacuum. — Jostein Gaarder

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

He who wishes to exert a useful influence must be careful to insult nothing. Let him not be troubled by what seems absurd, but concentrate his energies to the creation of what is good. He must not demolish, but build. He must raise temples where mankind may come and partake of the purest pleasure. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The first impression is readily received. We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to efface them. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Even people who are entirely strange and indifferent to one another will exchange confidences if they live together for a while, and a certain intimacy is bound to develop. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The one who acts is always without conscience; nobody has a conscience but the contemplative person. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The world runs on from one folly to another; and the man who, solely from regard to the opinion of others, and without any wish or necessity of his own, toils after gold, honour, or any other phantom, is no better than a fool. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

This is that CONSOLATION DES ARTS which is the key-note of Gautier's poetry, the secret of modern life foreshadowed - as indeed what in our century is not? - by Goethe. You remember what he said to the German people: 'Only have the courage,' he said, 'to give yourselves up to your impressions, allow yourselves to be delighted, moved, elevated, nay instructed, inspired for something great.' The courage to give yourselves up to your impressions: yes, that is the secret of the artistic life - for while art has been defined as an escape from the tyranny of the senses, it is an escape rather from the tyranny of the soul. But only to those who worship her above all things does she ever reveal her true treasure: else will she be as powerless to aid you as the mutilated Venus of the Louvre was before the romantic but sceptical nature of Heine. — Oscar Wilde

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

He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth. - GOETHE — Jostein Gaarder

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

We blame equally him who is too proud to put a proper value on his own merit and him who prizes too highly his spurious worth. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

There is nothing new on earth / For a person who lives long and experiences much. / In my years of youthful wandering / I have seen crystallized people. — 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

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Nothing is more disgusting than the majority: because it consists of a few powerful predecessors, of rogues who adapt themselves, of weak who assimilate themselves, and the masses who imitate without knowing at all what they want. — 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

I like being old, even if the names I hear are more and more unfamiliar. Maybe, to paraphrase Goethe who said that, "Youth is wasted on the young," we should add that "Age can be wasted on the aged," unless one's capacity to wonder increases. — Wolf Kahn

It is such an agreeable feeling to be busy with something one is only half-competent to do that nobody should criticize the dilettante for taking up an art he will never learn, or blame the artist who leaves the territory of his own art for the pleasure of trying himself in a neighbouring one. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is also ignorant of his own language. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides, or he is quite unworthy of it. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

No one is more of a slave than he who thinks himself free without being so. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Who is the happiest man? He who is alive to the merit of others, and can rejoice in their enjoyment as if it were his own. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The artist who is not also a craftsman is no good; but, alas, most of our artists are nothing else. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The suffering may be moral or physical; and in my opinion it is just as absurd to call a man a coward who destroys himself, as to call a man a coward who dies of a malignant fever. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

He who enjoys doing and enjoys what he has done is happy. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Oh happy he who still can hope in our day
to breathe the truth while plunged in seas of error!
What we don't know is really what we need,
and what we know is of no use to us whatever! — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It is ever true that he who does nothing for others, does nothing for himself. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

He who only tastes his error will long dwell with it, will take delight in it as in a singular felicity; while he who drains it to the dregs will, if he be not crazy, find it to be what it is. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe