Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
1749–1832 Germany
- Germany
- Academics
- Autobiographers
- Novelists
- Philosophers
Also known as: Goethe, Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, J. W. von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Von Goethe
Random Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quote
319 quotes
Let us live in as small a circle as we will, we are either debtors or creditors before we have had time to look round.
Elective Affinities (1809)
A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world's torrent.
He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.
The first and last thing demanded of genius is love of truth.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Nothing is more damaging to a new truth than an old error.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Three things are to be looked to in a building: that it stand on the right spot; that it be securely founded; that it be successfully executed.
Elective Affinities (1809)
One must be something in order to do something.
The longest day at last bends down to evening.
Beauty is not so much performance as promise.
Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others,
And in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own.
Not in the morning alone, not only at mid-day he charmeth;
Even at setting, the sun is still the same glorious planet.
He who serves the public is a poor animal; he worries himself to death and no one thanks him for it.
He who does not see the whole world in his friends, does not deserve that the world should hear of him.
He only fears men who does not know them, and he who avoids them will soon misjudge them.
Talent is nurtured in solitude; character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.
A great revolution is never the fault of the people, but of the government.
He only wins a woman's favour
Who with strong arm in need can save her.
Among all peoples, the Greeks have dreamt life's dream most beautifully.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Yes, my love, who soever lives, loses, * * * but he also wins.
There is nothing more fearful than imagination without taste.
There is nothing more frightful than an active ignorance.