Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes - Page 10

• For a brave man deserves a well-endowed girl.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Girl, Men, Brave

  "Hermann and Dorothea". Poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, III. 19, October 1797.

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• If one has not read the newspapers for some months and then reads them all together, one sees, as one never saw before, how much time is wasted with this kind of literature.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Philosophical, Thought Provoking, Together

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.3573, Delphi Classics

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• When translating one must proceed up to the intranslatable; only then one becomes aware of the foreign nation and the foreign tongue.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Tongue, Language, Translate

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• The art of living rightly is like all arts; it must be learned and practiced with incessant care.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Life Lesson, Learning

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• A genuine work of art usually displeases at first sight, as it suggests a deficiency in the spectator.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Sight, Firsts

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• In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Nature, Science, Connections

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.162, Ravenio Books

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• No wise combatant underestimates their antagonist.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Wise, Competition, Underestimate

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• We are our own devils; we drive ourselves out of our Edens.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Eden, Heaven, Devil

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• All ages have said and repeated that one should strive to know one's self. This is a strange demand which no one up to now has measured up to and, strictly considered, no one should. With all their study and effort, people are directed to what is outside, to the world about them, and they are kept busy coming to know this and to master it to the extent that their purposes require. . . . How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to. And what is your duty? Whatever the day calls for.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Thinking, Self, People

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• To make something you have to be something.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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• How many years must a man do nothing, before he can at all know what is to be done and how to do it!

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Years, Done

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.140, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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• Humor is one of the elements of genius--admirable as an adjunct; but as soon as it becomes dominant, only a surrogate for genius.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Humor, Genius, Elements

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

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• To understand one thing well is better than understanding many things by halves.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Understanding, Half, Wells

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• And what does really matter? That is easy: thinking and doing, doing and thinking--and these are the sum of all wisdom. . . . Both must move ever onward in life, to and fro, like breathing in and breathing out.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Moving, Thinking

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

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• But one must know where one stands, and where the others wish to go.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Advice, Wish, Knows

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• The coward only threatens when he is safe.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Coward, Literature, Safe

  "Torquato Tasso". II. 3. 207, 1790.

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• That is the way of youth and life in general: that we do not understand the strategy until after the campaign is over.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Campaigns, Way

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• One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Loneliness, Inspiration, Being Alone

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• 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

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• Boldness has power, magic and genius in it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Magic, Genius, Boldness

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• By nature we have no defect that could not become a strength, no strength that could not become a defect.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Strength, Nature, Defects

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

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• True observers of nature, although they may think differently, will still agree that everything that is, everything that is observable as a phenomenon, can only exhibit itself in one of two ways. It is either a primal polarity that is able to unify, or it is a primal unity that is able to divide. The operation of nature consists of splitting the united or uniting the divided; this is the eternal movement of systole and diastole of the heartbeat, the inhalation and exhalation of the world in which we live, act, and exist.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Heart, Thinking

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• There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on how one looks at it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Views, Insignificant Things, Literature

  "Goethe's World View: Presented in His Reflections and Maxims".

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• Only law can give us freedom.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Freedom, Law, Giving

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• What is my life if I am no longer useful to others.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Literature, Ifs

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