Best 1592 quotes of Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe on MyQuotes

Accepting good advice means nothing other than to strengthen one's own ability.

A clever man commits no minor blunders.

A correct answer is like an affectionate kiss.

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

Action has magic, grace and power in it.

A distracted existence leads us to no goal

A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.

After fifteen minutes nobody looks at a rainbow.

Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him.

Against great advantages in another, there are no means of defending ourselves except love.

Age childish makes, they say, but 'tis not true; We're only genuine children still in Age's season. [Ger., Das Alter macht nicht kindisch, wie man spricht, Es findet uns nur noch als wahre Kinder.]

Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.

Age merely shows what children we remain.

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

A good man, through obscurest aspirations Has still an instinct of the one true way.

A great artist... must be shaken by the naked truths that will not be comforted. This divine discontent, this disequilibrium, this state of inner tension is the source of artistic energy.

A great deal may be done by severity, more by love, but most by clear discernment and impartial justice.

A great revolution is never the fault of the people, but of the government.

A great scholar is seldom a great philosopher.

Ah, how often I've cursed those foolish pages, That showed my youthful sufferings to everyone! If Werther had been my brother, and I'd killed him, His sad ghost could hardly have persecuted me more.

Ah! my poor brain is racked and crazed, My spirit and senses amazed!

A human being needs only a small plot of ground on which to be happy, and even less to lie beneath.

A joy shared is a joy doubled.

A judge who cannot punish, in the end associates themselves with the criminal.

A king there was once reigning, Who had a goodly flea, Him loved he without feigning, As his own son were he!

Alas! how much there is in education, and in our social institutions, to prepare us and our children for insanity.

Alas, I have studied philosophy, the law as well as medicine, and to my sorrow, theology; studied them well with ardent zeal, yet here I am, a wretched fool, no wiser than I was before.

Alas, that we should be so unwilling to listen to the still and holy yearnings of the heart! A god whispers quite softly in our breast, softly yet audibly; telling us what we ought to seek and what to shun.

A leaf that is destined to grow large is full of grooves and wrinkles at the start. Now if one has no patience and wants it smooth offhand like a willow leaf, there is trouble ahead.

A life without love, without the presence of the beloved, is nothing but a mere magic-lantern show. We draw out slide after slide, swiftly tiring of each, and pushing it back to make haste for the next.

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.

All beginnings are delightful; the threshold is the place to pause.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

All is born of water; all is sustained by water.

All lyrical work must, as a whole, be perfectly intelligible, but in some particulars a little unintelligible.

All one needs to do is declare oneself free and one will immediately feel dependent. If you dare to declare yourself dependent, you feel independent.

All our knowledge is symbolic.

All poetry is supposed to be instructive but in an unnoticeable manner; it is supposed to make us aware of what it would be valuable to instruct ourselves in; we must deduce the lesson on our own, just as with life.

All rights and laws are still transmitted, Like an eternal sickness to the race. [Ger., Es erben sich Gesetz and Rechte Wie eine ew'ge Krankheit fort.]

All that is alive tends toward color, individuality, specificity, effectiveness and opacity. All that is done with life inclines toward knowledge, abstraction, generality transfiguration and transparency.

All that is noble is in itself of a quiet nature, and appears to sleep until it is aroused and summoned forth by contrast.

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

All theory, my friend, is grey, But green is life's glad golden tree.

All things are only transitory.

All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, until they take root in our personal experience.

Always to distrust is an error, as well as always to trust.

A man avails himself of the truth so long as it is serviceable; but he seizes on what is false with a passionate eloquence as soon as he can make a momentary use of it.

A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for them, and he patiently suffers much for them; but he becomes impatient if he is required to give them up.

A man may twist as he pleases, and do what he pleases, but he inevitably comes back to the track to which nature has destined him.

A man must cling to the belief that the incomprehensible is comprehensible; otherwise he would not try to fathom it.