Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes About Evil

• The greatest evil that can befall man is that he should come to think ill of himself.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Self Worth, Men, Thinking

• I believe in God and in nature and in the triumph of good over evil.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Believe, Evil, Triumph

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.73, Ravenio Books

• I am the spirit that negates. And rightly so, for all that comes to be Deserves to perish wretchedly; 'Twere better nothing would begin. Thus everything that that your terms, sin, Destruction, evil represent— That is my proper element.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Evil, Elements, Spirit

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Walter Arnold Kaufmann (1963). “Goethe's Faust: part one and sections from part two”, Anchor

• The assault of our enemies is not part of our life; it is only part of our experience; we throw it off and guard ourselves against it as against frost, storm, rain, hail, or any other of the external evils which may be expected to happen.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Rain, Evil, Enemy

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.191, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Evil, Faust

• 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

• The Evil One has left, the evil ones remain.
  [Ger., Den Bosen sind sie los, die Bosen sind geblieben.]

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Evil, Dens, Dies

• Pain and pleasure, good and evil, come to us from unexpected sources. It is not there where we have gathered up our brightest hopes, that the dawn of happiness breaks. It is not there where we have glanced our eye with affright, that we find the deadliest gloom. What should this teach us? To bow to the great and only Source of light, and live humbly and with confiding resignation.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Pain, Eye, Light

• What makes people happy is activity; changing evil itself into good by power, working in a God like manner.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Happiness, People, Evil

• The ground that a good man treads is hallowed.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Reading, Men, Evil

• The person who in shaky times also wavers only increases the evil, but the person of firm decision fashions the universe.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Fashion, Evil, Decision

• To tremble before anticipated evils is to bemoan what thou hast never lost.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Evil, Anticipation, Lost

• The Evil One has left, the evil ones remain.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Evil, Left

  "Faust". Play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, I. 6. 174, 1808.

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