Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes - Page 26

• We are pantheists when we study nature, polytheists when we write poetry, monotheists in our morality.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Religious, Writing, Morality

  6 Copy quote

• How shall we plan, that all be fresh and new--
  Important matter yet attractive too?
  [Ger., Wie machen wir's, dass alles frisch und neu
  Und mit Bedeutung auch gefallig sei?]

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Important, Mit, Matter

  7 Copy quote

• A rainbow which lasts for a quarter of an hour is looked at no longer.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Rainbow, Lasts, Hours

  9 Copy quote

• You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it never Rises from the soul, and sways The heart of every single hearer, With deepest power, in simple ways. You’ll sit forever, gluing things together, Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps, Blowing on a miserable fire, Made from your heap of dying ash. Let apes and children praise your art, If their admiration’s to your taste, But you’ll never speak from heart to heart, Unless it rises up from your heart’s space.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Children, Simple

  5 Copy quote

• Nature! We live in her midst and know her not. She is incessantly speaking to us, but betrays not her secret. We constantly act upon her, and yet have no power over her. Variant: NATURE! We are surrounded and embraced by her: powerless to separate ourselves from her, and powerless to penetrate beyond her.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Nature, Secret, Midst

  11 Copy quote

• Children, love one another, and if that is not possible-at least try to put up with one another.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Children, Trying, Love One Another

  4 Copy quote

• 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!

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Sea, Errors, Needs

  Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1985). “Faust/Bilingual”, Bantam Classics

  6 Copy quote

• However often we turn to it [the Koran] 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

  Time, Book, Exercise

  10 Copy quote

• Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do; and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Science, Men, Limits

  4 Copy quote

• We can always redeem the man who aspires and strives.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Perseverance, Men, Strive

  19 Copy quote

• A mind, once formed, is never suited after,
  One yet in growth will ever grateful be.
  [Ger., Wer fertig ist, dem ist nichts recht zu machen,
  Ein Werdender wird immer dankbar sein.]

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Grateful, Growth, Mind

  7 Copy quote

• Certain books seem to be written, not that we might learn from them, but in order that we might see how much the author knows.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Book, Order, Might

  7 Copy quote

• Napoleon for the sake of a good name broke in pieces half the world.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Power, Names, Pieces

  4 Copy quote

• What do people mean when they talk about unhappiness? It is not so much unhappiness as impatience that from time to time possesses men, and then they choose to call themselves miserable.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Mean, Men, People

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

  8 Copy quote

• No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Learning, Literature, Knows

  8 Copy quote

• Only the heart without a stain knows ease.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Heart, Ease, Stains

  9 Copy quote

• To me the external existence of my soul is proved from my idea of activity. If I work incessantly until my death, nature will give me another form of existence when the present can no longer sustain my spirit.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Ideas, Giving, Soul

  7 Copy quote

• Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Purpose, Literature, World

  9 Copy quote

• Hope is the second soul of the unhappy.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Hope, Soul, Unhappy

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.3536, Delphi Classics

  15 Copy quote

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

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Strength, Truth, Honesty

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.71, Ravenio Books

  12 Copy quote

• Children, like dogs, have so sharp and fine a scent that they detect and hunt out everything--the bad before all the rest. They also know well enough how this or that friend stands with their parents; and as they practice no dissimulation whatever, they serve as excellent barometers by which to observe the degree of favor or disfavor at which we stand with their parents.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Dog, Children, Practice

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.435, Ravenio Books

  12 Copy quote

• If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Children, Should Have, Childhood

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Oxenford (2013). “The Auto-Biography of Goethe: Truth and Poetry: From My Own Life”, p.54, Cambridge University Press

  14 Copy quote

• Don't dissipate your powers; strive to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it will surely repent of every ill-judged outlay.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Power, Thinking, Focus

  17 Copy quote

• Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Memorial, Literature, Letters

  19 Copy quote

• Who are you then?" "I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Evil, Faust

  14 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Friedrich Schiller

Heinrich Heine

Friedrich Nietzsche

Lord Byron

William Shakespeare

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Johann Gottfried Herder

Immanuel Kant