Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes About Knowledge

• As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Inspirational, Life, Trust

• The greater the knowledge, the greater the doubt.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Knowledge, Doubt, Greater

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1853). “Goethe's Opinions on the World, Mankind, Literature, Science, and Art”, p.24

• Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

• Belief is not the beginning of knowledge - it is the end.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Knowledge, Belief, Ends

• Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Knowledge, Thinking, Knowing

• We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Education, Knowledge, Doubt

  "Sprüche in Prosa". "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations", pp. 419-423, 1922.

• Never by reflection, but only by doing is self- knowledge possible to one.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Knowledge, Acceptance, Reflection

• 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

• Mediocrity has no greater consolation than in the thought that genius is not immortal.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Knowledge, Genius, Mediocrity

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1868). “Novels and Tales by Goethe”, p.153

• The history of knowledge is a great fugue in which the voices of the nations one after the other emerge.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Knowledge, Voice, Fugue

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.63, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• What is not fully understood is not possessed.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Knowledge, Understanding, Understood

• What we do not understand we do not possess.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Education, Wisdom, Learning

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2012). “The Goethe Treasury: Selected Prose and Poetry”, p.294, Courier Corporation

• With the growth of knowledge our ideas must from time to time be organized afresh. The change takes place usually in accordance with new maxims as they arise, but it always remains provisional.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Knowledge, Ideas, Growth

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1906). “The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe”

• The greatest piece of folly is that every man thinks himself compelled to hand down what people think they have known.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Knowledge, Men, Thinking

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.3589, Delphi Classics

• 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

• The real scholar learns how to evolve the unknown from the known, and draws near the master.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Real, Knowledge, Masters

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.118, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• What a man does not understand, he does not possess.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Knowledge, Men, Doe

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.68, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• It will be! the mass is working clearer!
  Conviction gathers, truer, nearer!
  The mystery which for Man in Nature lies
  We dare to test, by knowledge led;
  And that which she was wont to organize
  We crystallize, instead.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lying, Hard Work, Knowledge

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1912). “Faust”

• It is not enough to have knowledge; one must apply it. It is not enough to have wishes; one must also accomplish it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Knowledge, Wish, Enough

• Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Knowledge, Men, Self

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.1891, Delphi Classics

You May Also Like:

Friedrich Schiller

Heinrich Heine

Friedrich Nietzsche

Lord Byron

William Shakespeare

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Johann Gottfried Herder