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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

165 quotes

• “Instruction does much, but encouragement everything.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1768 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to A. F. Oeser (9 November 1768), Early and miscellaneous letters of J. W. Goethe, including letters to his mother. With notes and a short biography (1884)

• “Wo viel Licht ist, ist starker Schatten.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1773 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Götz von Berlichingen, Act I (1773)

• “So gewiß ist der allein glücklich und groß, der weder zu herrschen noch zu gehorchen braucht, um etwas zu sein!”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1773 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Götz von Berlichingen, Act I (1773), p. 39

• “I hold to faith in the divine love — which, so many years ago for a brief moment in a little corner of the earth, walked about as a man bearing the name of Jesus Christ — as the foundation on which alone my happiness rests.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1773 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: (1773), translated by Albert Schweizer in Goethe: Five Studies (1961), Beacon Press, p. 53

• “One lives but once in the world.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1774 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Clavigo, Act I, sc. i (1774)

• “Getting along with women, Knocking around with men, Having more credit than money, Thus one goes through the world.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1776 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Claudine von Villa Bella (1776)

• “When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one's hands full just to be able to remove their trash.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1780 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Johann Kaspar Lavatar (6 March 1780)

• “Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind? Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind; Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm, Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1782 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Der Erlkönig (1782)

• “Noble be man, Helpful and good! For that alone Sets hims apart From every other creature On earth.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1783 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Das Göttliche (The Divine) (1783)

• “As great, everlasting, Adamantine laws Dictate, we must all Complete the cycles Of our existence.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1783 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Das Göttliche (The Divine) (1783)

• “Only mankind Can do the impossible: He can distinguish, He chooses and judges, He can give permanence To the moment.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1783 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Das Göttliche (The Divine) (1783)

• “Let the noble man Be generous and good, Tirelessly achieving What is just and useful: Let him be a model For those beings whom he surmises.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1783 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Das Göttliche (The Divine) (1783)

• “In der Kunst ist das Beste gut genug.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1787 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Italian Journey (March 3, 1787)

• “A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1790 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Torquato Tasso, Act I, sc. i (1790)

• “A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world's torrent.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1790 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Torquato Tasso, Act I, sc. ii (1790)

• “Untersuchen was ist, und nicht was behagt”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1792 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Der Versuch als Vermittler von Objekt und Subjekt (The Attempt as Mediator of Object and Subject) (1792)

• “Die Liebe herrscht nicht, aber sie bildet; und das ist mehr!”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1795 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Das Märchen (1795), as translated by Hermann J. Weigand in Wisdom and Experience (1949); also translated elsewhere as The Fairy-Tale, The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, and simply The Tale]

• “We can't form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1797 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hermann und Dorothea (1797)

• “The spirits that I summoned up I now can't rid myself of.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1797 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Der Zauberlehrling (The Sorcerer's Apprentice) (1797)

• “One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is the intermixing of different genres.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1798 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Propylaea (1798) Introduction

• “The true, prescriptive artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless artist, following blind instinct, after an appearance of naturalness. The one leads to the highest peaks of art, the other to its lowest depths.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1798 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Propylaea (1798) Introduction

• “In limitations he first shows himself the master, And the law can only bring us freedom.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1802 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Was Wir Bringen (1802)

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

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1812 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Carl Friedrich Zelter (3 December 1812)

• “I have often felt a bitter sorrow at the thought of the German people, which is so estimable in the individual and so wretched in the generality. A comparison of the German people with other peoples arouses a painful feeling, which I try to overcome in every possible way.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1813 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Goethes Gespraeche (December 13, 1813)

• “Von andern Seiten her vernahm ich ähnliche Klänge, nirgends wollte man zugeben, daß Wissenschaft und Poesie vereinbar seien. Man vergaß, daß Wissenschaft sich aus Poesie entwickelt habe, man bedachte nicht, daß, nach einem Umschwung von Zeiten, beide sich wieder freundlich, zu beiderseitigem Vorteil, auf höherer Stelle, gar wohl wieder begegnen könnten.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1817 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Zur Morphologie (On Morphology), (1817)

• “Patriotism ruins history.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1817 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Conversation with Friedrich Wilhem Riemer (July, 1817)

• “Who wants to understand the poem Must go to the land of poetry; Who wishes to understand the poet Must go to the poet's land.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1819 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: West-östlicher Diwan, motto (1819)

• “For I have been a man, and that means to have been a fighter.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1819 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: West-östlicher Diwan, Buch des Paradies (1819)

• “Should I not be proud, when for twenty years I have had to admit to myself that the great Newton and all the mathematicians and noble calculators along with him were involved in a decisive error with respect to the doctrine of color, and that I among millions was the only one who knew what was right in this great subject of nature?”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1823 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Eckermann (30 December 1823)

• “All poetry is supposed to be instructive but in an unnoticeable manner; it is supposed to make us aware of what it would be valuable to instruct ourselves in; we must deduce the lesson on our own, just as with life.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1825 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Carl Friedrich Zelter (26 November 1825)

• “I am more and more convinced that poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere and at all times in hundreds and hundreds of men. ... I therefore like to look about me in foreign nations, and advise everyone to do the same. National literature is now a rather unmeaning term; the epoch of world literature is at hand, and everyone must strive to hasten its approach.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1827 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Conversations with Eckermann (entry for 31 January 1827)

• “One must be something in order to do something.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1828 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Conversations with Eckermann (20 October 1828)

• “I have found a paper of mine among some others in which I call architecture 'petrified music.' Really there is something in this; the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of music.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1829 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Conversations with Eckermann (23 March 1829) - Often quoted as "Architecture is frozen music.

• “If I work incessantly to the last, nature owes me another form of existence when the present one collapses.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1829 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Eckermann (4 February 1829)

• “The artist may be well advised to keep his work to himself till it is completed, because no one can readily help him or advise him with it...but the scientist is wiser not to withhold a single finding or a single conjecture from publicity.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Willst du immer weiterschweifen? Sieh, das Gute liegt so nah. Lerne nur das Glück ergreifen, denn das Glück ist immer da.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “O'er all the hilltops Is quiet now, In all the treetops Hearest thou Hardly a breath; The birds are asleep in the trees: Wait; soon like these Thou too shalt rest.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Amerika, du hast es besser—als unser Kontinent, der alte.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1831 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Wendts Musen-Almanach (1831)

• “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. Not in the morning alone, not only at mid-day he charmeth; Even at setting, the sun is still the same glorious planet.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Distichs" in The Poems of Goethe (1853) as translated in the original metres by Edgar Alfred Bowring

• “And now the sagacious reader, who is capable of reading into these lines what does not stand written in them, but is nevertheless implied, will be able to form some conception of the serious feelings with which I then set foot in Emmendingen.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Autobiography: Truth and Poetry Book xviii. London 1884 p. 115 books.google.de

• “Nun aber wird der einsichtige Leser, welcher fähig ist, zwischen diese Zeilen hineinzulesen, was nicht geschrieben steht, aber angedeutet ist, sich eine Ahnung der ernsten Gefühle gewinnen, mit welchen ich damals Emmendingen betrat. www.zeno.org”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “A burgher may acquire merit; by excessive efforts he may even educate his mind; but his personal qualities are lost, or worse than lost, let him struggle as he will. Since the nobleman, frequenting the society of the most polished, is compelled to give himself a polished manner; since this manner, neither door nor gate being shut against him, grows at last an unconstrained one; since, in court or camp, his figure, his person, are a part of his possessions, and it may be the most necessary part, — he has reason enough to put some value on them, and to show that he puts some.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1824 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Goethe, translated by Thomas Carlyle (1824), cited in: Jürgen Habermas (1989) Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, English ed. p. 12

• “No matter how far our spiritual culture may continue to progress, no matter how much the natural sciences may grow, becoming ever more profound and more inclusive, no matter how much the human spirit may will to expand, that human spirit will never escape from the majesty and ethical sublimity of Christianity, as it shimmers and shines in the Gospels.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1832 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: A message to Eckermann on March 11, (1832), translated by Albert Schweizer in Goethe: Five Studies (1961), Beacon Press, p. 56

• “Young Schopenhauer, a zealous and thorough-going Kantian, tried to explain that light would cease to exist along with the seeing eye. "What!" he said, according to Schopenhauer's own report, "looking at him with his Jove-like eyes,"—"You should rather say that you would not exist if the light could not see you?”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: As quoted by Friedrich Jodl, "Goethe and Kant," The Monist (1901) f. , ed. Paul Carus, Vol. 11, p. 264. As translated from Professor Jodl's MS. by W. H. Carruth, of the University of Kansas.

• “However often we turn to it [the Qur'an] at first disgusting us each time afresh, it soon attracts, astounds, and in the end enforces our reverence... Its style, in accordance with its contents and aim is stern, grand, terrible — ever and anon truly sublime — Thus this book will go on exercising through all ages a most potent influence.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, quoted in Dictionary of Islam (1895), by T.P. Hughes, p. 526

• “Nothing is great but truth, and the smallest truth is great. The other day I had a thought, which I put like this: Even a harmful truth is useful, for it can be harmful only for the moment and will lead to other truths, which must always become useful, very much so. Conversely, even a useful error is harmful, for it can be useful only for the moment, enticing us into other errors, which become more and more harmful.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1787 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Charlotte von Stein (1787) in Goethe’s World View: Presented in His Reflections and Maxims (1963), Edited with an Introduction by Frederick Ungar, Translated by Heinz Norden, pp. 72-73, Frederick Ungar Publish…

• “I have by no means an aversion to things Indian, but I am afraid of them, for they draw my imagination into the formless and the diffuse against which I have to guard myself more than ever before.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter, writing to Wilhelm Humboldt. Quoted in Singhal, D P India and World Civilization p. 244. Rupa and Co Calcutta 1993.ASIN 0870131435 p. 230- 232. , as quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts a…

• “By way of a personal compromise, he became an adept of the "noble and pure" wisdom of the Parsees as a means of escaping from the "narrow circle of Hebraic-Rabbinic thought and of reaching the depth and amplitude of Sanskrit".”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: as quoted from Poliakov, L. (1974). The Aryan myth : a history of racist and nationalist ideas in Europe p. 195

• “Ich singe, wie der Vogel singt Der in den Zweigen wohnet.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Wer nichts wagt, gerwinnt nichts. Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen aß, Wer nie die kummervollen Nächte Auf seinem Bette weinend saß, Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

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