Goethe's Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about Goethe's

Goethe's Quotes & Sayings

Happy to read and share the best inspirational Goethe's quotes, sayings and quotations on Wise Famous Quotes.

A man's foibles are what makes him lovable. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

In art it's not the thinking that does the job, but making. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Confronted by outstanding merit, there is no way of saving one's ego except by love — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I will listen to anyone's convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

While man's desires and aspirations stir he cannot choose but err. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Whether the Koran is of eternity
I don't ask about that
That it is the book of books
I believe it to be so as muslim's duty. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

We're really up against it, we poor women: A bachelor's a hard thing to convert — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Then to the depths! - I could as well say height: It's all the same. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

One's roused by this, another finds that fit: Each loves the play for what he brings to it. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

One man's word is no man's word; we should quietly hear both sides. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The hand gestures of Italians are not, apparently, as clear-cut as Goethe believed. De Jorio discovered that knowing the purpose of someone's mind — Ross King

For five hundred years after Walther's death - until Goethe - no German lyric poet was his equal. — Walther Von Der Vogelweide

Still this planet's soil for noble deeds grants scope abounding. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Strike the dog dead, it's but a critic! — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

We gladly put antiquity above our age but not posterity. Only a father doesn't begrudge his son's talent. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The hardest thing is to see what's under your very eyes. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It is better to be deceived by one's friends than to deceive them. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It is one of Heaven's best gifts to hold such a dear creature in one's arms. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

What's done is yet to come. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

You don't love if you don't take the beloved's faults for virtues. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Napoleon affords us an example of the danger of elevating one's self to the absolute, and sacrificing everything to the carrying out of an idea. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Time may restore us in his course Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force: But where will Europe's latter hour Again find Wordsworth's healing power? — Matthew Arnold

Did it really have to be like this?that the source of Man's contentment becomes the source of his misery? — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Let many things unfold before their eyes, Let the crowd stare and be amazed, for then You'll win their hearts, and that's to win the prize; — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

For that is love's nature that it lays claim to exclusive right and that all other claims are nil. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Only learn to seize good fortune, for good fortune's always here. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

And step by step, along the path of life, There's nothing true but Heaven. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

If you want to understand poetry,
You have to go to its origin,
If you want to understand the poet,
You have to go to the Poet's home. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

My worthy friend, gray are all theories
And green alone Life's golden tree. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It's true that nothing in this world makes us so necessary to others as the affection we have for them. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The lion's fierceness, Mild hart's swiftness, Italian fieriness, Northern steadiness. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Jupiter's welcome to more from his Juno if he can get it — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A man's errors are what make him amiable. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Yes, here within thy sanctified walls there's a soul in each object, — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

As long as on the earth endures his life
To deal with him have full and free permission;
Man's hour on earth is weakness, error, strife. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one's self on lies and fables. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A noble man is led by woman's gentle words. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Try novelties for salesman's bait, For novelty wins everyone. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world's torrent. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

What's left undone today, tomorrow will not do. Faust — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

There is no higher or purer pleasure than to sit with closed eyes and hear a naturally expressive voice recite ... a play of Shakespeare's. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Oh, happy he who still hopes he can emerge from Error's boundless sea! - Faust. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Read this book ... but understand it's fiction. And let life be ... your most important addiction. — John Zelazny

Ask Jeeves! Who ever used that thing? College freshmen to find out who Goethe was - that's it. — Walter Kirn

Properly speaking, such work is never finished; one must declare it so when, according to time and circumstances, one has done one's best. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Yet he who grasps the moment's gift, He is the proper man. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Good children's literature appeals not only to the child in the adult, but to the adult in the child. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It is delightful to transport one's self into the spirit of the past, to see how a wise man has thought before us. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

How circumscribed is woman's destiny! — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

If I'm to listen to someone else's opinion, it must be put in a positive way; I have enough problematic speculations in my own head — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

No limit, no definition, may restrict the range or depth of the human spirit's passage into its own secrets or the world's. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The shudder of awe is humanity's highest faculty, even though this world is forever altering values. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Judge a man's character by what he finds ridiculous. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The realization of the self is only possible if one is productive, if one can give birth to one's own potentialities. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Man's restlessness makes him strive. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Death is Nature's expert advice to get plenty of Life. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Must it be, that what makes for a man's happiness becomes the source for his misery? — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Man is too prone, at best, to seek the way that's easy, He soon grows fond of unconditioned rest; — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Oh, I envy you!" he cried. "You are still nourished by yesterday's alms, but yesterday's happiness no longer nourishes me. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Colors are light's suffering and joy — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Grant me one hour on love's most sacred shores
To clasp the bosom that my soul adores,
Lie heart to heart and merge my soul with yours. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

If one doesn't know one's own country, one doesn't have standards for foreign countries. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Accepting good advice means nothing other than to strengthen one's own ability. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

For many people, one of the most frustrating aspects of life is not being able to understand other people's behavior. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Life's objective is life itself. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

All theory, my friend, is grey, But green is life's glad golden tree. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Who enslaves another's manhood with weak human power alone, Lays a heavier yoke of bondage thoughtlessly upon his own. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Stood I, O Nature! man alone in thee, Then were it worth one's while a man to be. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

True love is love that stays constant for ever, whatever it's fortune; whether requited or scored, filled or sent empty away. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

What you inherit from your father
must first be earned before it's yours. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Men's wretchedness in soothe I so deplore,
Not even I would plague the sorry creatures more. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

To be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, Long since, saw Byron 's struggle cease. — Matthew Arnold

It's irrelevant whether what one says is true or false: both will be contradicted. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Mystery is truth's dancing partner. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A man's shortcomings are taken from his epoch; his virtues and greatness belong to himself. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It is equally a mistake to hold one's self too high, or to rate one's self too cheap. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Talents are nurtured best in solitude, But character on life's tempestuous seas! — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Nature has neither core nor skin: she's both at once outside and in. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I was keen to stage 'Faust,' although I find Goethe's 'Faust' indigestible. — Simon McBurney

Men grieve [Mephistopheles] so with the days of their lamenting, [he] even hate[s] to plague them with [his] torments. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Were the eye not of the sun, How could we behold the light? If God's might and ours were not as one, How could His work enchant our sight? — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Now you've seen a hero," he said. "And that's worth something." - Eckermann, CONVERSATIONS WITH GOETHE — Arturo Perez-Reverte

We know that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day's work at Auschwitz in the morning. — George Steiner

It's in the anomalies that nature reveals its secrets. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Goethe's thinking was not rigid with inflexible contours; it was a thinking in which the concepts continually metamorphose. — Rudolf Steiner

Let it go out, the sun's fire, If light dawns inside our souls, In our own hearts we'll discover What the outer world withholds. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

But I've got you, you're caught! For a half-hellhound like you are, Solomon's Key is what is called for. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Presents at once? That's good. He is sure to succeed. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

To accept good advice is but to increase one's own ability. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Whatever is the object of a saint's hope is the subject of his prayer. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The effects of good music are not just because it's new; on the contrary music strikes us more the more familiar we are with it. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

As he came leaping in, the poodle did not heed it.
The matter now seems turned about;
The Devil's in the house and can't get out. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It's a shame that Nature made you only one man; there was material enough for a worthy man and a rogue. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Man's highest merit always is, as much as possible, to rule external circumstances and as little as possible to let himself be ruled by them. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

But imagine you're a tapeworm, and then suddenly you're Goethe. It's like that. — John Scalzi