Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Correction does much, but encouragement does more.

Each one sees what he carries in his heart.

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

Wisdom is found only in truth.

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

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

15"General ideas and great conceit are always a fair way to bring about terrible misfortune.

Instruction does much, but encouragement everyt

But there are times," said Charlotte, "when it is necessary and an act of friendship to write nothin...

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free

When I say to the Moment flying;'Linger a while -- thou art so fair!'Then bind me in thy bonds undyi...

If I wasn't a devil myself I'd give Me up to the Devil this very minute.

I've often heard it said, a preacherMight learn, with a comedian for a teacher.

By Fortune's adverse buffets overborneTo solitude I fled, to wilds forlorn,And not in utter loneline...

The world admires wealth and velocity—these are the things for which everyone strives. Railroads, th...

What's foreign one can't always keep quite clear of,For good things, oft, are not so near;A German c...

I am the spirit that negates.And rightly so, for all that comes to beDeserves to perish wretchedly;'...

Wild dreams torment me as I lie. And though a god lives in my heart, though all my power waken at hi...

To end the greatest work designed,A thousand hands need but one mind.

What matters creative endless toil, When, at a snatch, oblivion ends the coil?

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

Who are you then?" "I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.

If the whole world I once could seeOn free soil stand, with the people freeThen to the moment might ...

Everything transitory is but an image.

You are aware of only one unrest;Oh, never learn to know the other!Two souls, alas, are dwelling in ...

I am not omniscient, but I know a lot.

You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it neverRises from the soul, and swaysThe heart of every single ...

schade dass die Natur nur einen Mensch aus dir schuf / denn zum wurdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen d...

The Church has an excellent appetite. She has swallowed whole countries and the questionHas never ri...

The world turns gray, the air grows cool, the fog blows in. Only at evening can you really value hom...

Grant me one hour on love’s most sacred shoresTo clasp the bosom that my soul adores,Lie heart to he...

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

There is strong shadow where there is much light.

Nothing can be compared to the new life that the discovery of another country provides for a thought...

I'm fairly fond of boys, but my preference is for girls; When I have enough of a girl, she serves me...

We look back on our life as a thing of broken pieces, because our mistakes and failures are always t...

Whatever liberates our spirit without giving us mastery over ourselves is destructive.

Legislators and revolutionaries who promise equality and liberty at the same time, are either psycho...

Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.

For in music there is no material to be deducted.

You must, in studying Nature, always consider both each single thing and the whole: nothing is insid...

Only air and light and the love of friends! Let no man lose heart who still has these.

Anything in the world can be endured, except a series of wonderful days.

It is not easy in this world for one person to understand the next one.

Naturalists tell of a noble race of horses that instinctively open a vein with their teeth, when hea...

We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon t...

As usual, I shall tell my story badly; and you, as usual, will think me extravagant.

No one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, ...

When a nation which has long groaned under the intolerable yoke of a tyrant rises at last and throws...

Solitude is precious balm to my heart in these paradistic parts.

And when I look around the apartment where I now am,—when I see Charlotte’s apparel lying before me,...

I was on the point of breaking off the conversation, for nothing puts me so completely out of patien...

What is the destiny of man, but to fill up the measure of his sufferings, and to drink his allotted ...

Gracious Providence, to whom I owe all my powers, why didst thou not withhold some of those blessing...

if only these treasures were not so fragile as they are precious and beautiful.

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honour ...

It seems it has been my fate to sadden those I should have made happy.

...nothing is more dangerous than solitude: there our imagination, always disposed to rise, taking a...

God knows I often retire to my bed wishing (at times even hoping) that I might never wake up; and in...

I possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. I possess so much, but without her I have not...

A dim vastness is spread before our souls; the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of ou...

The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in ...

Once we are lost unto ourselves, everything else is lost to us.

I have so much in me, and the feeling for her absorbs it all; I have so much, and without her it all...

When I go out by the gateway, taking the road I drove along that first time I picked up Lotte for th...

I could be living the best and happiest of lives if only I were not a fool.

Man needs only a small patch of earth for his pleasures, and a smaller one still to rest beneath.

In this world one is seldom reduced to make a selection between two alternatives. There are as many ...

We often feel that we lack something, and seem to see that very quality in someone else, promptly at...

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

The things I know, every man can know, but, oh, my heart is mine alone!

There occurs the beautiful feeling that only humanity together is the true human being, and that the...

Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard...

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if ...

My father, my father, and dost thou not hearThe words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear?'Be...

On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold.

And while throughout the self same motion Repeated on forever flows The thousandfold o er arching oc...

In all things it is better to hope than to despair.

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

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

All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, w...

Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.

There is no higher or purer pleasure than to sit with closed eyes and hear a naturally expressive vo...

He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.

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

Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.

On top of the world, or in the depths of despair.

Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity.

Glib tongues frill up their hash of knowledgefor mankind in polished speechesthat are no more than v...

Age merely shows what children we remain.

Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just t...

Men grieve [Mephistopheles] so with the days of their lamenting, [he] even hate[s] to plague them wi...

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

A clever man commits no minor blunders.

Being full of mischief, they love to listen;they gladly obey, for they like to betray you,pretending...

Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us for...

nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am t...

Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.

Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn wh...

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.

I think of you when upon the sea the sun flings her beams.I think of you when the moonlight shines i...