200+ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes to Inspire Wisdom, Creativity, and the Human Spirit

Updated 2024/12/06

August 28, 1749 – March 22, 1832
German
Poet, playwright, novelist, philosopher, politician
His literary works “Faust” and “The Sorrows of Young Werther” had a major impact on world literature.

“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”
“Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.”
“Superstition is the poetry of life.”
“There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one’s self on lies and fables.”
“Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.”
“Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at.”
“Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it; and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.”
“Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.”
“If a man or woman is born ten years sooner or later, their whole aspect and performance shall be different.”
“There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.”
“One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.”
“Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.”
“Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.”
“He who does not think much of himself is much more esteemed than he imagines.”
“What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.”
“A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.”
“In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm… in the real world all rests on perseverance.”
“One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.”
“A clever man commits no minor blunders.”
“Correction does much, but encouragement does more.”
“We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright.”
“I love those who yearn for the impossible.”
“One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.”
“Personality is everything in art and poetry.”
“A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise.”
“It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.”
“It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.”
“We will burn that bridge when we come to it.”
“Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.”
“He who enjoys doing and enjoys what he has done is happy.”
“Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.”
“Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate.”
“Fresh activity is the only means of overcoming adversity.”
“A useless life is an early death.”
“Do not give in too much to feelings. An overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth.”
“The unnatural, that too is natural.”
“I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better than book or orator.”
“For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.”
“He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.”
“Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.”
“Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.”
“A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.”
“Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.”
“The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.”
“Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.”
“We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.”
“Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.”
“The human mind will not be confined to any limits.”
“The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad, will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.”
“It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.”
“All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.”
“There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.”
“Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.”
“All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.”
“To hard necessity one’s will and fancy must conform.”
“Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them.”
“Science arose from poetry… when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.”
“We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.”
“I will listen to anyone’s convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself.”
“A man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.”
“The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.”
“Live dangerously and you live right.”
“Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?”
“Love does not dominate; it cultivates.”
“Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.”
“What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.”
“The formation of one’s character ought to be everyone’s chief aim.”
“Upon the creatures we have made, we are, ourselves, at last, dependent.”
“Life is the childhood of our immortality.”
“There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.”
“We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.”
“Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.”
“Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.”
“Mysteries are not necessarily miracles.”
“What is my life if I am no longer useful to others?”
“He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides, or he is quite unworthy of it.”
“We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.”
“The little man is still a man.”
“The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.”
“Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture.”
“I call architecture frozen music.”
“Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.”
“When ideas fail, words come in very handy.”
“Nothing is to be rated higher than the value of the day.”
“Devote each day to the object then in time and every evening will find something done.”
“Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.”
“Sowing is not as difficult as reaping.”
“In art the best is good enough.”
“If you modestly enjoy your fame you are not unworthy to rank with the holy.”
“Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.”
“Precaution is better than cure.”
“Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.”
“He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.”
“Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.”
“Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.”
“Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.”
“The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.”
“First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.”
“It is better to be deceived by one’s friends than to deceive them.”
“The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.”
“He is dead in this world who has no belief in another.”
“Love can do much, but duty more.”
“To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods.”
“The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.”
“An unused life is an early death.”
“The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.”
“Few people have the imagination for reality.”
“He only earns his freedom and his life who takes them every day by storm.”
“I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.”
“The world remains ever the same.”
“On all the peaks lies peace.”
“Great thoughts and a pure heart, that is what we should ask from God.”
“That I be not as those are who spend the day in complaining of headache and the night in drinking the wine which gives the headache!”
“The coward only threatens when he is safe.”
“No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.”
“The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.”
“Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.”
“Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.”
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
“For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.”
“Objects in pictures should so be arranged as by their very position to tell their own story.”
“We can’t form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.”
“A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.”
“Death is a commingling of eternity with time; in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time.”
“There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.”
“To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.”
“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.”
“Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.”
“Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity.”
“It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.”
“The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.”
“A correct answer is like an affectionate kiss.”
“To rule is easy, to govern difficult.”
“Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.”
“The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.”
“Common sense is the genius of humanity.”
“It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.”
“Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.”
“The deed is everything, the glory is naught.”
“Mastery passes often for egotism.”
“Every spoken word arouses our self-will.”
“The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.”
“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.”
“Age merely shows what children we remain.”
“Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.”
“Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.”
“Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill.”
“Doubt grows with knowledge.”
“Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.”
“Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.”
“If you treat an individual as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”
“The man who occupies the first place seldom plays the principal part.”
“If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.”
“The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.”
“If I love you, what business is it of yours?”
“Nothing is worth more than this day.”
“If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.”
“Error is acceptable as long as we are young; but one must not drag it along into old age.”
“This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.”
“Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.”
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
“Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.”
“Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.”
“If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.”
“Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.”
“The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.”
“The right man is the one who seizes the moment.”
“Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.”
“Girls we love for what they are; young men for what they promise to be.”
“Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.”
“What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.”
“The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.”
“What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own.”
“Character develops itself in the stream of life.”
“If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.”
“Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.”
“Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.”
“Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.”
“Wisdom is found only in truth.”
“No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.”
“Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.”
“There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.”
“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.”
“All things are only transitory.”
“If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.”
“One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.”
“I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.”
“Every step of life shows much caution is required.”
“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.”
“Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.”
“A person hears only what they understand.”
“Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.”
“To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.”
“Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.”
“We don’t get to know people when they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are like.”
“Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.”
“I never knew a more presumptuous person than myself. The fact that I say that shows that what I say is true.”
“To create something you must be something.”
“Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.”
“We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.”
“Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.”
“If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.”