Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes - Page 6

• We see only what we know.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Science, Belief, Knows

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Gage (1980). “Goethe on Art”, p.7, Univ of California Press

  13 Copy quote

• Nothing is worse than active ignorance.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Ignorance, Justice, Diversity

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

  71 Copy quote

• No one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genuine motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Children, Believe, Cake

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2006). “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, p.32, Penguin UK

  56 Copy quote

• Very few people love others for what they are; rather, they love what they lend them, their own selves, their own idea of them.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Self, Ideas, People

  47 Copy quote

• Look at a man the way he is and he only becomes worse, but look at him as if he were what he could be, then he becomes what he should be.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Looks, Way

  62 Copy quote

• It is ever true that he who does nothing for others, does nothing for himself." ~ Goethe

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Doe

  40 Copy quote

• We must not take the faults of our youth with us into old age, for age brings along its own defects.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Time, Age, Faults

  9 Copy quote

• To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Purpose, Literature

  6 Copy quote

• The highest happiness of man ... is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Happiness, Men, Inner Peace

  11 Copy quote

• The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Fear, Mean, Race

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2006). “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, p.29, Penguin UK

  28 Copy quote

• Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Love, Life, Marriage

  12 Copy quote

• A wife is a gift bestowed upon a man to reconcile him to the loss of paradise.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Marriage, Loss, Men

  13 Copy quote

• A man doesn't learn to understand anything unless he loves it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Learning, Men, Understanding

  8 Copy quote

• In all our academies we attempt far too much. ... In earlier times lectures were delivered upon chemistry and botany as branches of medicine, and the medical student learned enough of them. Now, however, chemistry and botany are become sciences of themselves, incapable of comprehension by a hasty survey, and each demanding the study of a whole life, yet we expect the medical student to understand them. He who is prudent, accordingly declines all distracting claims upon his time, and limits himself to a single branch and becomes expert in one thing.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Education, Science, Medicine

  8 Copy quote

• To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Funny Inspirational, Integrity, Inspirational Life

  67 Copy quote

• It is only necessary to grow old to become more charitable and even indulgent. I see no fault committed by others that I have not committed myself.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Time, Age, Faults

  6 Copy quote

• Nature is the living, visible garment of God.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Nature, Garments, Visible

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1882). “Faust, the First Part: The Text, with English Notes, Essays, and Verse Translations by E. J. Turner ... and E. D. A. Morshead ...”

  4 Copy quote

• The Bible grows more beautiful, as we grow in our understanding of it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Beautiful, Understanding, Grows

  6 Copy quote

• Distrust those in whom the desire to punish is strong.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Strong, Desire, Distrust

  6 Copy quote

• Do not hurry; do not rest.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Inspirational

  4 Copy quote

• Ingratitude is always a kind of weakness. I have never known men of ability to be ungrateful.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Ungrateful, Weakness

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.82, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  65 Copy quote

• He is the happiest man who can see the connection between the end and the beginning of life.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Death, Men, Connections

  27 Copy quote

• The rich want good wine, the poor, plenty of wine

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Wine, Want, Rich

  14 Copy quote

• Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Strive, Concentration

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1839). “Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of His Life”, p.117

  7 Copy quote

• Mere curiosity adds wings to every step.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Wings, Curiosity, Add

  32 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Friedrich Schiller

Heinrich Heine

Friedrich Nietzsche

Lord Byron

William Shakespeare

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Johann Gottfried Herder

Immanuel Kant