Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes About Age

• Age merely shows what children we remain.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Children, Age, Literature

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1984). “Faust”

• We must not take the faults of our youth with us into old age, for age brings along its own defects.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Time, Age, Faults

• When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Knowledge, Intelligent, People

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.74, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• Whoever, in middle age, attempts to realize the wishes and hopes of his early youth, invariably deceives himself. Each ten years of a man's life has its own fortunes, its own hopes, its own desires.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Funny, Birthday, Meaningful

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.817, Delphi Classics

• Someone criticized an elderly man for wooing young women. He replied that that was the only way to rejuvenation, which was, afterall, everybody's wish.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Elderly, Wish

• Tolerance comes of age. I see no fault committed that I myself could not have committed at some time or other.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Time, Tolerance, Age

• At all times it has not been the age, but individuals alone, who have worked for knowledge. It was the age which put Socrates to death by poison, the age which burnt Huss. The ages have always remained alike.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Knowledge, Age, Poison

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.93, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• Rejoice that you have still have a long time to live, before the thought comes to you that there is nothing more in the world to see.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Time, Long, Age

• It is only necessary to grow old to become more charitable and even indulgent. I see no fault committed by others that I have not committed myself.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Time, Age, Faults

• Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Happiness, Time, Children

• The older we get the more we must limit ourselves if we wish to be active.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Time, Wish, Age

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Carl Friedrich Zelter (1892). “Goethe's Letters to Zelter: With Extracts from Those of Zelter to Goethe”

• 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

• All ages have said and repeated that one should strive to know one's self. This is a strange demand which no one up to now has measured up to and, strictly considered, no one should. With all their study and effort, people are directed to what is outside, to the world about them, and they are kept busy coming to know this and to master it to the extent that their purposes require. . . . How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to. And what is your duty? Whatever the day calls for.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Thinking, Self, People

• In all times it is only individuals that have advanced science, not the age.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Science, Men, Age

• Error is acceptable as long as we are young; but one must not drag it along into old age.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Birthday, Errors, Long

• Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Secular Music, Age, Cheerful

• Love grants in a moment what toil can hardly acheive in an age.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Age, Toil

• The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Birthday, Science, Age

• Old age is never honored among us, but only indulged, as childhood is; and old men lose one of the most precious rights of man,--that of being judged by their peers.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Rights, Childhood

• One spares old people just as one spares children.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Children, People, Age

• The modern age has a false sense of superiority, because of the great mass of data at its disposal. But the valid criterion of distinction is rather the extent to which man knows how to form and master the material at his command.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Data, Age

• Age childish makes, they say, but 'tis not true;
  We're only genuine children still in Age's season.
  [Ger., Das Alter macht nicht kindisch, wie man spricht,
  Es findet uns nur noch als wahre Kinder.]

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Children, Men, Age

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

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Age, Desire, Youth

• Rash combat oft immortalizes man; if he should fall, he is renowned in song; but after-ages reckon not the ceaseless tears which the forsaken woman sheds. Poets tell us not of the many nights consumed in weeping, or of the dreary days wherein her anguished soul vainly yearns to call her loved one back.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Song, Fall, Night

• To become aware in time when young of the advantages of age; to maintain the advantages of youth in old age: both are pure fortune.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Age, Youth, Fortune

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