Nature goes her own way and all that to us seems an exception is really according to order.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Nature
The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Christianity, Religion
It never occurs to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Luck, Fools, Merit, Foolishness
Everything that frees our spirit without giving us control of ourselves is ruinous.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We must not take the faults of our youth with us into old age, for age brings along its own defects.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Time, Age
It is not enough to know, we must also apply; it is not enough to will, we must also do.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take firm root in our personal experience.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Thinking, Think, Persona, Wise, Thoughts, Thought
Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Nature, Life
The decline of literature indicates the decline of the nation. The two keep pace in their downward tendency.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Literature, Books, Nation
Great possessions and great want of them are both strong temptations.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Temptation
To make couples love each other you only need to part them.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Devote each day to the object then in time, and every evening will find something done.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Present
Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Deception, Deception/Lying
A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Talent
What you can do, or think you can, begin it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To measure up to all that is demanded of him, a man must overestimate his capacities.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Ignorance
Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Age, Aging
There is repetition everywhere, and nothing is found only once in the world.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Simplicity
We must not hope to be mowers And to gather the ripe gold ears, Unless we have first been sowers, And watered the furrows with tears. It is not just as we take it, This mystical world of ours: Life’s field will yield as we make it, A harvest of thorns or of flowers.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Life
I make presents to the mother but think of the daughter.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Men
Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Thinking, Humankind, Action
Reason can never be popular. Passions and feelings may become popular, but reason will always remain the sole property of a few eminent individuals.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Reason
I don’t know a greater advantage, than to appreciate the worth of an enemy.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: War
I believe in God and in nature and in the triumph of good over evil.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Nature
Children, love one another, and if that is not possible-at least try to put up with one another.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Children
Man can only endure a certain degree of unhappiness; what is beyond that either annihilates him or passes by him and leaves him apathetic
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Men, Unhappiness
Girls we love for what they are; young men for what they promise to be.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Youth
Mathematicians are like Frenchman: whatever you say to them they translate Into their own language, and forthwith it is something entirely different.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Science, Mathematics
Nothing is to be rated higher than the value of the day.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Value, Time Management, Time
There is nothing more frightening than a bustling ignorance.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Friedrich Schiller German Poet
- Johann Gottfried Herder German Critic, Poet
- Berthold Auerbach German Novelist
- Bertolt Brecht German Poet
- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing German Writer
- Konrad Adenauer German Statesman
- Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock German Poet
- Hans Carossa German Novelist
- Erich Fromm German Social Philosopher
- Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi German Philosopher
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