Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes


As all Nature's thousands changes But one changeless God proclaim;

So in Art's wide kingdom ranges One sole meaning still the same:

This is Truth, eternal Reason, Which from Beauty takes its dress,

And serene through time and season Stands aye in loveliness.


Life is the childhood of our immortality.


No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.

One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.

Precaution is better than cure.

The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

The deed is everything, the glory is naught.

There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.

Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.

To rule is easy, to govern difficult.

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

Trust yourself, then you will know how to live.

We are never deceived we deceive ourselves

We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own.

Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.

Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

A person hears only what they understand.

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.

Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.

If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.

If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.

If your treat an individuals if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.

Correction does much, but encouragement does more.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

Death is a commingling of eternity with time; in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time.

Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.

Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.

Error is acceptable as long as we are young; but one must not drag it along into old age.

First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.

I love those who yearn for the impossible.

Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.

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.

In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm.In the real world all rests on perseverance.

It is better to be deceived by one's friends than to deceive them.

It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.

It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.

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

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.

Architecture is frozen music.