Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes About Lying

• It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Truth, Lying, Errors

• None are so hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lying, Believe, Eye

• Truth is a torch but a tremendous one. That is why we hurry past it, shielding our eyes, indeed, in fear of getting burned.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Truth, Fear, Lying

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

• Truth has to be repeated constantly, because Error also is being preached all the time, and not just by a few, but by the multitude. In the Press and Encyclopaedias, in Schools and Universities, everywhere Error holds sway, feeling happy and comfortable in the knowledge of having Majority on its side.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Truth, Lying, School

• Our wishes are presentiments of the abilities that lie in us, harbingers of what we will be able to accomplish.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lying, Wish, Able

• Nothing is more damaging to the truth than an old error.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Truth, Lying, Errors

• There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one's self on lies and fables.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lying, Self, Deceit

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.525, Delphi Classics

• Happy the man who early learns the wide chasm that lies between his wishes and his powers.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lying, Men, Wish

• In politics as on a sickbed men toss from side to side in hope of lying more comfortably.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lying, Men, Political

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

• The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Motivational, Lying, Adversity

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations". Compiled by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt and Kate Louise Roberts, 1922.

• The fine emotions whence our lives we mold
  Lie in the earthly tumult dumb and cold.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Lying, Dumb

• When I make a mistake everyone can see it, but not when I lie.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Mistake, Lying

• 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”

• Once I blazed across the sky, Leaving trails of flame; I fell to earth, and here I lie - Who'll help me up again? -A Shooting Star

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Stars, Lying, Flames

• Wild dreams torment me as I lie. And though a god lives in my heart, though all my power waken at his word, though he can move my every inmost part - yet nothing in the outer world is stirred. thus by existence tortured and oppressed I crave for death, I long for rest.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Dream, Lying, Moving

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, David Luke (1998). “Faust”, p.48, Oxford University Press, USA

• Moral epochs have their course as well as the seasons. We can no more hold them fast than we can hold sun, moon, and stars. Our faults perpetually return upon us; and herein lies the subtlest difficulty of self-knowledge.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Stars, Lying, Moon

• The misery that oppresses you lies not in your profession but in yourself! What man in the world would not find his situation intolerable if he chooses a craft, an art, indeed any form of life, without experiencing an inner calling? Whoever is born with a talent, or to a talent, must surely find in that the most pleasing of occupations! Everything on this earth has its difficult sides! Only some inner drive - pleasure, love - can help us overcome obstacles, prepare a path, and lift as out of the narrow circle in which others tread out their anguished, miserable existences!

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Lying, Men

• Do the duty which lies nearest to thee.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lying, Thee, Duty

• When we see the many grave-stones which have fallen in, which have been defaced by the footsteps of the congregation, which lie buried under the ruins of the churches, that have themselves crumbled together over them; we may fancy the life after death to be as a second life, into which man enters in the figure, or the picture or the inscription, and lives longer there than when he was really alive. But this figure also, this second existence, dies out too, sooner or later. Time will not allow himself to be cheated of his rights with the monuments of men or with themselves.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lying, Men, Rights

• Hatred is a heavy burden. It sinks the heart deep in the breast, and lies like a tombstone on all joys.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Tombstone, Lying, Heart

• On all the peaks lies peace.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Peace, Nature, Lying

• Wouldst thou ever roam abroad? See, what is good lies by thy side. Only learn to catch happiness, for happiness is ever by you.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Happiness, Lying, Sides

• When one is polite in German, one lies.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lying, Polite

• When I err every one can see it, but not when I lie.
  [Ger., Wenn ich irre kann es jeder bemerken; wenn ich luge, nicht.]

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lying

• The mark of highest originality lies in the ability to develop a familiar idea so fruitfully that it would seem no one else would ever have discovered so much to be hidden in it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lying, Ideas, Originality

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