Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was the greatest icon in the German literary and cultural pantheon. This master of world literature was a polymath: not only was he a poet, novelist, playwright, historian, and natural philosopher, but he also held several government positions at Weimar and made scientific discoveries.
Goethe gained early fame with his first novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774; The Sorrows of Young Werther.) Written as a collection of letters by the protagonist, this sentimental epistolary novel tells the story of a young man who falls in love with a woman engaged to another man.
Goethe also wrote hundreds of essays, many volumes of lyric poetry, and an in-depth dissertation on the physics of light and color contrasting his theories against Newton’s.
Goethe is most famous for his magnum opus Faust, published as Faust, Part One (1808) and Faust, Part Two (1832.) Goethe started writing Faust at age 23 and finished it a few months before his death six decades later. This two-part poetic drama is based on a classic German legend, which in turn is based on an actual magician who lived in northern Germany in the fifteenth century.
Goethe’s Faust tells the story of a brilliant scholar named Heinrich Faust, who is very successful yet unhappy in life. He forsakes God, makes a dangerous deal with the Devil, and exchanges his soul for unlimited power, knowledge, and worldly pleasures. Celebrated for its themes of damnation, witchcraft, sexual betrayal, and freeform philosophic contemplation, Faust is considered one of the greatest works of German literature.
Appreciation for Goethe and his works throughout Europe and America added much to the dissemination of German culture worldwide, with significant effects on scholarship, education, and philosophy, as well as literature throughout the 19th century.
In addition to his literary work, Goethe was also a geologist, botanist, anatomist, physicist, and science historian. His most notable scientific contributions include his theory of plant metamorphosis and his theory of colors.
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A talent can be cultivated in tranquility; a character only in the rushing stream of life.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Character
There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternally new now that builds and creates itself out of the Best as the past withdraws.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Time, Past, The Past
Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Excellence
Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Life
Who never ate his bread in sorrow, who never spent the darksome hours weeping, and watching for the morrow, He knows ye not, ye gloomy Powers.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In praising or loving a child, we love and praise not that which is, but that which we hope for.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Children
A collections of anecdotes and maxims is the greatest of treasures for the man of the world, for he knows how to intersperse conversation with the former in fit places, and to recollect the latter on proper occasions.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Proverbs
Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Aging, Age
I pity men who occupy themselves exclusively with the transitory in things and lose themselves in the study of what is perishable, since we are here for this very end-that we may make the perishable imperishable, which we can do only after we have learned how to approach both.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Character
Life teaches us to be less severe with ourselves and others.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It is better to do the most trifling thing in the world than to regard half an hour as trifle.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Time Management, Value of Time
Night is the other half of life, and the better half.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Night
Freedom consists not in refusing to recognize anything above us, but in respecting something which is above us; for by respecting it, we raise ourselves to it, and, by our very acknowledgment, prove that we bear within ourselves what is higher, and are worthy to be on a level with it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Freedom
There is nothing more frightful than imagination without taste.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Imagination
Instruction does much, but encouragement does everything.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Encouragement, Punishment, Correction, Motivation
What sort of God would it be, who only pushed from without.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Ability
Man… knows only when he is satisfied and when he suffers, and only his sufferings and his satisfactions instruct him concerning himself, teach him what to seek and what to avoid. For the rest, man is a confused creature; he knows not whence he comes or whither he goes, he knows little of the world, and above all, he knows little of himself.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Humanity
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, Action
I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wishes. The greater part of all mischief in the world arises from the fact that men do not sufficiently understand their own aims. They have undertaken to build a tower, and spend no more labor on the foundation than would be necessary to erect a hut.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Desires, Understanding
The really unhappy person is the one who leaves undone what they can do, and starts doing what they don’t understand; no wonder they come to grief.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Ability
Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
One must be something, in order to do something.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Character
Tell me what you’re laughing at and I shall tell you who you are.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Every man hears only what he understands.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Understanding
Not the maker of plans and promises, but rather the one who offers faithful service in small matters. This is the person who is most likely to achieve what is good and lasting.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Success & Failure, Achievement, Promises
If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The first and last thing required of genius is, love of the truth.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Genius
The phrases that men hear or repeat continually, end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Habit
What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Goals
There is nothing more frightening than a bustling ignorance.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The greatest genius will never be worth much if he pretends to draw exclusively from his own resources.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Creativity, Genius
I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Romance
Desire is the presentiment of our inner abilities, and the forerunner of our ultimate accomplishments.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Accomplishment, Desire
Continue to make the demands of the day your immediate concern, and take occasion to test the purity of your hearts and the steadfastness of your spirits. When you then take a deep breath and rise above the cares of this world and in an hour of leisure, you will surely win the proper frame of mind to face devoutly what is above us, with reverence, seeing in all events the manifestation of a higher guidance.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Attitude
He who moves not forward goes backward.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Goals
A man’s manners are the mirror in which he shows his portrait.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Manners
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