Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

The history of knowledge is a great fugue in which the voices of the nations one after the other emerge.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

Faith is hidden household capital.

I am certain that I have been here as I am now a thousand times before, and I hope to return a thousand times.

Everything that frees our spirit without giving us control of ourselves is ruinous.

Science has been seriously retarded by the study of what is not worth knowing and of what is not knowable.

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.

Art will always be art.

Patriotism ruins history.

If I love you, what business is it of yours?

The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.

I look upon all four Gospels as thoroughly genuine, for there shines forth from them the reflected splendor of a sublimity proceeding from Jesus Christ.

What you desire when young, you have in abundance when old.

Women are silver dishes into which we put golden apples.

As man is, so is his God. And thus is God oft strangely odd.

Our passions are the true phoenixes; when the old one is burnt out, a new one rises from its ashes.

Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

The misery that oppresses you lies not in your profession but in yourself! What man in the world would not find his situation intolerable if he chooses a craft, an art, indeed any form of life, without experiencing an inner calling? Whoever is born with a talent, or to a talent, must surely find in that the most pleasing of occupations! Everything on this earth has its difficult sides! Only some inner drive - pleasure, love - can help us overcome obstacles, prepare a path, and lift as out of the narrow circle in which others tread out their anguished, miserable existences!

Art is long, life is short; judgement difficult, opportunity transient.

We are our own devils; we drive ourselves out of our Edens.

If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.

One says a lot in vain, refusing; The other mainly hears the "No."

Gray is the color of all theory

We are surrounded by abysses, but the greatest of all depths is in our own heart, and an irresistible leaning leads us there. Draw thyself from thyself!

Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture.

What makes people happy is activity; changing evil itself into good by power, working in a God like manner.

Democracy does not race, it reaches the finish slowly but surely.

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!

Tolerance should really be only a temporary attitude; it must lead to recognition. To tolerate means to offend.

We're only really thinking when we can't think out fully what we are really thinking about!

Wisdom is only found in truth.

Not art and science only, but patience will be required for the work.

One never goes further than when they do not know where they are going.

There is no outward sign of true courtesy that does not rest on a deep moral foundation.

A well-bred carriage is difficult to imitate; for in strictness it is negative, and it implies a long-continued previous training.

For many people, one of the most frustrating aspects of life is not being able to understand other people's behavior.

Art is in itself noble; that is why the artist has no fear of what is common. This, indeed, is already ennobled when he takes it up.

What men usually say of misfortunes, that they never come alone, may with equal truth be said of good fortune; nay, of other circumstances which gather round us in a harmonious way, whether it arise from a kind of fatality, or that man has the power of attracting to himself things that are mutually related.

A good man, through obscurest aspirations Has still an instinct of the one true way.

The happy do not believe in miracles.

Self-love exaggerates our faults as well as our virtues.

Three things are to be looked to in a building: that it stand on the right spot; that it is securely founded; that it be successfully executed.

Passions are defects or virtues in the highest power.

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.

I have learned much from disease which life could have never taught me anywhere else.

Art is a severe business; most serious when employed in grand and sacred objects. The artist stands higher than art, higher than the object. He uses art for his purposes, and deals with the object after his own fashion.

Mannerism always wants to be finished and doesn't enjoy the process. Genuine, truly great talent, however, finds its greatest satisfaction in the production.

The desire to explain what is simple by what is complex, what is easy by what is difficult, is a calamity.