Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

two souls, alas, are housed within my breast, and each will wrestle for the mastery there.

He who knows no foreign languages knows nothing of his own.

Nature has neither core nor skin: she’s both at once outside and in.

To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.

He alone deserves liberty and life who daily must win them anew.

Man supposes that he directs his life and governs his actions, when his existence is irretrievably under the control of destiny

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.

One never goes so far as when one doesn't know where one is going.

Everything which is properly business we must keep carefully separate from life. Business requires earnestness and method; life must have a freed handling.

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!

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.

Character - in things great and small - is indicated when a man (or person) pursues with sustained follow-through what he feels himself capable of doing.

There are but few who have ideas and are, at the same time, capable of action. Ideas enlarge but stymie, action enlivens but confines.

Just begin and the mind grows heated; continue, and the task will be completed!

We can really respect a man only if he doesn't always look out for himself.