Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Quotes

Few people have the imagination for reality.

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

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

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

Girls we love for what they are; young men for what they promise to be.

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.

Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.

A clever man commits no minor blunders.

A correct answer is like an affectionate kiss.

Doubt grows with knowledge.

Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.

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

Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.

We can't form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.

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

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

A useless life is an early death.

There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.

Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.

He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.

Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.

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

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.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it; and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.

Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.

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

Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.

Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.

Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.

We don't get to know people when they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are like.

Great thoughts and a pure heart, that is what we should ask from God.

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

Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.

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

Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.

Devote each day to the object then in time and every evening will find something done.

Every step of life shows much caution is required.

Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.

If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.

We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.

He is dead in this world who has no belief in another.

The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.

To rule is easy, to govern difficult.

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

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

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

If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.

It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.

To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods.

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

He who does not think much of himself is much more esteemed than he imagines.

The right man is the one who seizes the moment.

Nothing is worth more than this day.

Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

All things are only transitory.

Mastery passes often for egotism.

Objects in pictures should so be arranged as by their very position to tell their own story.

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.