Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes - Page 12

• Doubt can only be removed by action.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Motivational, Fear, Doubt

  Thomas Carlyle, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, Friedrich Heinrich Karl La Motte-Fouqué (Freiherr de), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Karl August Musäus (1827). “Wilhelm Meister's travels”, p.8

  21 Copy quote

• The art of living rightly is like all arts; it must be learned and practiced with incessant care.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Life Lesson, Learning

  7 Copy quote

• To be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Inspirational, Knowing Who You Are, Goal

  7 Copy quote

• The written word has this advantage, that it lasts and can await the time when it is allowed to take effect.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lasts, Advantage, Written Word

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.134, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  4 Copy quote

• The iron hand of necessity commands, and her stern decree is supreme law, to which the gods even must submit. In deep silence rules the uncounselled sister of eternal fate. Whatever she lays upon thee, endure; perform whatever she commands.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Fate, Hands, Law

  4 Copy quote

• What one has wished for in youth, in old age one has in abundance.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Age, Youth, Abundance

  Wahrheit und Dichtung (Poetry and Truth) pt. 2, ch. 6 (1811 - 1833)

  6 Copy quote

• Boldness has power, magic and genius in it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Magic, Genius, Boldness

  11 Copy quote

• True observers of nature, although they may think differently, will still agree that everything that is, everything that is observable as a phenomenon, can only exhibit itself in one of two ways. It is either a primal polarity that is able to unify, or it is a primal unity that is able to divide. The operation of nature consists of splitting the united or uniting the divided; this is the eternal movement of systole and diastole of the heartbeat, the inhalation and exhalation of the world in which we live, act, and exist.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Heart, Thinking

  16 Copy quote

• A man's foibles are what makes him lovable.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Faults, Lovable

  39 Copy quote

• It is said, that no one is a hero to their butler. The reason is, that it requires a hero to recognize a hero. The butler, however, will probably know well how to estimate his equals.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Hero, Reason, Butlers

  8 Copy quote

• Only law can give us freedom.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Freedom, Law, Giving

  19 Copy quote

• No two men see the world exactly alike, and different temperaments will apply in different ways a principle that they both acknowledge. The same man will, indeed, often see and judge the same things differently on different occasions: early convictions must give way to more mature ones. Nevertheless, may not the opinions that a man holds and expresses withstand all trials, if he only remains true to himself and others?

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Two, Giving

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Gage (1980). “Goethe on Art”, p.5, Univ of California Press

  11 Copy quote

• The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth.
  [Ger., Das erste und letzte, was vom Genie gefordert wird, ist Wahreits-Liebe.]

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Genius, Lasts, Firsts

  27 Copy quote

• Common sense is the genius of humanity.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Meaningful, Common Sense, Humanity

  12 Copy quote

• It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Inspirational, Fear, Fate

  8 Copy quote

• What is my life if I am no longer useful to others.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Literature, Ifs

  19 Copy quote

• There speaks the man of truly noble ways, Who will not listen to the words of praise. In modesty averse, and with deaf ears, He acts as though the others were his peers.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Peers, Noble

  8 Copy quote

• The best pleasures of this world are not quite true.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  World, Pleasure, This World

  4 Copy quote

• Humor is one of the elements of genius--admirable as an adjunct; but as soon as it becomes dominant, only a surrogate for genius.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Humor, Genius, Elements

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Stuart Blackie (1883). “The Wisdom of Goethe”, Edinburgh, W. Blackwood

  19 Copy quote

• I hate everything that merely instructs me without augmenting or directly invigorating my activity.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Education, Hate, Activity

  8 Copy quote

• The most original of authors are not so because they advance what is new, but more because they know how to say something, as if it had never been said before.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Writing, Originality, Said

  13 Copy quote

• The destiny of any nation at any given time depends on the opinion of its young people, those under twenty-five.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Time, Destiny, People

  10 Copy quote

• Patriotism corrupts history.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Politics

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1963). “Goethe's world view: presented in his reflections and maxims”

  15 Copy quote

• To make something you have to be something.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  10 Copy quote

• What one doesn't understand one doesn't possess.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Understanding

  15 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Friedrich Schiller

Heinrich Heine

Friedrich Nietzsche

Lord Byron

William Shakespeare

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Johann Gottfried Herder

Immanuel Kant