Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes About Culture

• Nothing is worse than active ignorance.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Ignorance, Justice, Diversity

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

• Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Hate, Hatred, Degrees

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (1949). “Words of Goethe: being the conversations of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe”

• Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Work, New Beginnings

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (19??). “Gleams From..: Being Passages Selected and Translated from the Prose Writings of Goethe and from His Converstaions with Eckermann”

• A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows and rows of natural objects, classified with name and form.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Wisdom, Teacher, Memories

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2016). “Elective Affinities”, p.175, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• Wealth and speed are what the world admires, what each pursues. Railways, express mails, steamships and every possible facility for communications are the achievement in which the civilized world view and revels, only to languish in mediocrity by that very fact. Indeed, the effect of this diffusion is to spread the culture of the mediocre.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Communication, Views, Achievement

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

• Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in even greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen itself as much as it desires: beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it shines forth in the Gospels, it will not go.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Bible, Shining, Mind

• Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Mean, Goal, Mind

• Piety is not an end, but a means: a means of attaining the highest culture by the purest tranquility of soul. Hence it may be observed that those who set up piety as an end and object are mostly hypocrites.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Hypocrite, Mean, Soul

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.3516, Delphi Classics

• Even though the world as a whole progresses, youth must always start again from the beginning, and as individuals go through the epochs of the world's culture.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Progress, Culture, World

• Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect, that every one should study, by all methods, to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things. ...For this reason, one ought every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Beautiful, Song, Men

  Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre bk. 5, ch. 1 (1795 - 1796)

• If the world does improve on the whole, yet youth must always begin anew, and go through the stages of culture from the beginning.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Doe, Culture, World

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1839). “Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of His Life”, p.189

• Culture which smooth the whole world licks, Also unto the devil sticks.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Devil, Culture, World

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1875). “Faust: A Tragedy”, p.258

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