Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quotes
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes



Quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - (109 quotes)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Ability category:

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Accomplishment category:

I never believed in trying to do anything. Whatever I set out to do I found I had already accomplished. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Activity category:

Rest not! Life is sweeping by; go dare before you die. / Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Activity category:

Fresh activity is the only means of overcoming adversity. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Ambition category:

Men are so constituted that everybody undertakes what he sees another successful in, whether he has aptitude for it or not. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Application category:

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Architecture category:

I call architecture frozen music. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Art category:

Art is long, life is short, judgement difficult, opportunity transient. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Art category:

A genuine work of art usually displeases at first sight, as it suggests a deficiency in the spectator. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Art category:

Art will always be art. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Art category:

True works of art are a manifestation of the higher laws of nature. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Beauty category:

Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Beauty category:

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Beauty category:

Art is constitutive – the artist determines beauty. He does not take it over. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Beginning category:

Every beginning is cheerful. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Beginning category:

Boldness has genius, power and magic. Engage, and the mind grows heated. Begin, and the work will be completed. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Chaos category:

One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is when we see its separate forms jumbled together. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Character category:

Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Character category:

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Character category:

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than by what they think laughable. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Children category:

If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Collectors category:

Collectors are happy people. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Colour category:

Colours are light's suffering and joy. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Colour category:

Colours are the deeds of light, its deeds and sufferings. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Commitment category:

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Commitment category:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiation – creation – there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans... (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Communication category:

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Construction category:

He must not demolish, but build. He must raise temples where mankind may come and partake of the purest pleasure. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Conviction category:

Oh how sweet it is to hear one's own convictions from another's lips. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Criticism category:

Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Danger category:

The dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Difficulty category:

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Difficulty category:

Difficulties increase the nearer we approach our goal. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Drawing category:

We should talk less and draw more. Personally I would like to renounce speech altogether, and like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say in sketches. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Dreams category:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Begin it now. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Dreams category:

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Earth category:

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Education category:

I hate everything that merely instructs me without augmenting or directly invigorating my activity. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Ego category:

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Encouragement category:

Correction does much, but encouragement does more. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Excellence category:

In art the best is good enough. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Expectation category:

The threshold is the place of expectation. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Experience category:

Experience is only half of experience. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Experience category:

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Fame category:

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Freedom category:

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Genius category:

First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Goodness category:

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 on the creation of what is good. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Goodness category:

If you call a thing bad you do little, if you call a thing good you do much. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Greatness category:

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)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Health category:

Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Hope category:

In all things it is better to hope than to despair. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Hope category:

Those who have no hope for a future life are already dead for the present one. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Humanity category:

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)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Ideas category:

When ideas fail, words come in very handy. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Ideas category:

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Importance category:

He alone is great and happy who requires neither to command nor to obey in order to secure his being of some importance in this world. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Incentive category:

The way you see people is the way you treat them and the way you treat them is the way they become. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Individuality category:

Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Individuality category:

Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Indolence category:

My counsel is, to force nothing, and rather to trifle and sleep away all unproductive days and hours, than on such days to compose something that will afterwards give no pleasure. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Interest category:

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Journey category:

One never goes so far as when one doesn't know where one is going. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Joy category:

Enjoy what you can, endure what you must. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Knowledge category:

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Knowledge category:

Nothing is as terrible to see as ignorance in action. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Life category:

Life is but a preparation for what there is to come. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Light category:

There is strong shadow where there is much light. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Loneliness category:

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Love category:

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Love category:

To be loved for what one is, is the greatest exception. The great majority love in others only what they lend him, for their own selves, their version of him. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Mistakes category:

Man must strive and, in striving, must go wrong. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Morality category:

The work of art may have a moral effect, but to demand moral purpose from the artist is to make him ruin his work. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Nature category:

The unnatural, that too is natural. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Nature category:

The artist has a twofold relation to nature; he is at once her master and her slave. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Originality category:

The most original authors are not so because they advance what is new, but because they put what they have to say as if it had never been said before. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Originality category:

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Patriotism category:

There is no patriotic art and no patriotic science. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Patriotism category:

Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Persistence category:

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)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Poetry category:

Modern poets add a lot of water to their ink. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Portraiture category:

One is never satisfied with the portrait of a person that one knows. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Possessions category:

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Power category:

Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but is sure to repent of every ill-judged outlay. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Priorities category:

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Procrastination category:

The right man is the one who seizes the moment. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Prosperity category:

Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Recognition category:

The deed is everything, the glory is naught. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Religion category:

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Renewal category:

Human beings, by change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Sacrifice category:

We can offer up much in the large, but to make sacrifices in little things is what we are seldom equal to. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Seeing category:

Each one sees what he carries in his heart. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Seeing category:

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of our eyes. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Silence category:

Create, artist, do not talk. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Solitude category:

When all is said, the greatest action is to limit and isolate one's self. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Struggle category:

Two souls dwell, alas! in my breast. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Suffering category:

A great artist... must be shaken by the naked truths that will not be comforted. This divine discontent, this disequilibrium, this state of inner tension is the source of artistic energy. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Talent category:

Talent develops in tranquility, character in the full current of human life. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Talent category:

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Talent category:

-loosely translated from German...
What you have inherited from your forefathers, it takes work to make it your own. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Teaching category:

A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows on rows of natural objects, classified with name and form. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Theory category:

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Thought category:

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 root in our personal experience. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Time category:

Without haste, but without rest. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Understanding category:

A man doesn't learn to understand anything unless he loves it. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Universe category:

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Work category:

If I work incessantly to the last, nature owes me another form of existence when the present one collapses. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Work category:

It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do that makes life blessed. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - From the Worth category:

Nothing is worth more than this day. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)