Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes About Books

• If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Funny, Sarcastic, Book

• I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Believe, Book, Learning

• Every reader, if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Strong, Book, Reading

• Nature is, after all, the only book that offers important content on every page.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Nature, Book, Important

• The dear good people don't know how long it takes to learn to read. I've been at it eighty years, and can't say yet that I've reached the goal.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Book, Years, People

• 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

• It is quite beyond me how anyone can believe God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveal to us our relationship to it, if our hearts fail to tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we shall assuredly not learn it from books, which are at best designed but to give names to our errors.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Book, Believe, Heart

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

• Sweet moonlight, shining full and clear, Why do you light my torture here? How often have you seen me toil, Burning last drops of midnight oil. On books and papers as I read, My friend, your mournful light you shed. If only I could flee this den And walk the mountain-tops again, Through moonlit meadows make my way, In mountain caves with spirits play - Released from learning's musty cell, Your healing dew would make me well!

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Sweet, Book, Healing

  "The Essential Goethe".

• So then the year is repeating its old story again. We are come once more, thank God! to its most charming chapter. The violets and the Mayflowers are as its inscriptions or vignettes. It always makes a pleasant impression on us, when we open again at these pages of the book of life.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Spring, Book, Years

• Never let a day pass without looking at some perfect work of art, hearing some great piece of music and reading, in part, some great book.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Book, Reading

• Some books seem to have been written, not to teach us anything, but to let us know that the author has known something.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Book, Artistic, Teach

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.3567, Delphi Classics

• 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

• Daily life is more instructive than the most effective book.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Book, Daily Life

  "Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann".

• Whatever we may say against collections, which present authors in a disjointed form, they nevertheless bring about many excellent results. We are not always so composed, so full of wisdom, that we are able to take in at once the whole scope of a work according to its merits. Do we not mark in a book passages which seem to have a direct reference to ourselves? Young people especially, who have failed in acquiring a complete cultivation of mind, are roused in a praiseworthy way by brilliant passages.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Book, People, Mind

• Beware of a man of one book.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Wise, Book, Men

• Properly speaking, we learn from those books only that we cannot judge. The author of a book that I am competent to criticise would have to learn from me.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Book, Judging, Competent

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

• Of the book of books most wondrous is the tender book of love.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Love, Book, Wondrous

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