Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes About Virtue

• Wine rejoices the heart of man and joy is the mother of all virtues.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Mother, Heart, Wine

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1837). “Goetz Von Berlichingen with the Iron Hand: A Drama in Five Acts”, p.20

• The hero draws inspiration from the virtue of his ancestors.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Inspiration, Hero, Virtue

• Self-love exaggerates our faults as well as our virtues.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Love, Self, Faults

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1858). “Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Travels”, p.197

• It is with art as with love: How can a man of the world,with all his distractions, keep the inwardness which an artist must possess if he hopes to attain perfection? That inwardness which the spectator must share if he is to understand the work as the artist wishes and hopes... Believe me, talents are like virtues; either you must love them for their own sake or renounce them altogether. And they are only recognized and rewarded when we have practised them in secret, like a dangerous mystery."

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Believe, Men

• Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Passion, Power, Vices

• A man's shortcomings are taken from his epoch; his virtues and greatness belong to himself.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Taken, Greatness, Men

• He loves not who does not see the faults of the beloved as virtues.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Doe, Faults, Beloved

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

• Beauty vanishes; virtue is lasting.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Beauty, Virtue, Lasting

• Passions are defects or virtues in the highest power.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Passion, Virtue, Defects

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

• Our virtues and view spring from one root.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Spring, Views, Roots

• The shudder of awe is humanity's highest faculty,
  Even though this world is forever altering its values.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Forever, Humanity, World

• You don't love if you don't take the beloved's faults for virtues.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Love, Faults, Virtue

• Conscience is the virtue of the observers not the agents of action

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Agents, Action, Virtue

• The absence of temptation is the absence of virtue.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Temptation, Virtue, Absence

• Courage and modesty are the most unequivocal of virtues, for they are of a kind that hypocrisy cannot imitate; they too have this quality in common, that they are expressed by the same color.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Courage, Color, Hypocrisy

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