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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Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Thinking, Thoughts, Thought
Whenever I hear people talking about liberal ideas, I am always astounded that men should love to fool themselves with empty sounds. An idea should never be liberal; it must be vigorous, positive, and without loose ends so that it may fulfill its divine mission and be productive. The proper place for liberality is in the realm of the emotions.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Ideas, Giving
Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Work, Ability
God made man simple, but how he changed and got complicated is hard to say.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Simple Living, Simplicity
Without haste, but without rest.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Defects, One liners, Fools, Ignorance
Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Hate, Hatred, Envy
As our inclinations, so our opinions.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Opinion
The passions are like those demons with which Afrasahiab sailed down the Orus. Our only safety consists in keeping them asleep. If they wake, we are lost.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Passion
The phrases that men hear or repeat continually, end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Habit, Conviction
Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Romance
How many years you have to keep on doing, until you know what to do and how to do.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Endurance, Resolve, Perseverance
A vain man can never be altogether rude.—Desirous as he is of pleasing, he fashions his manners after those of others.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Vanity
Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Character
This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Wisdom
Someday perhaps the inner light will shine forth from us, and then we’ll need no other light.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Light
Nothing tells more about the character of a man than the things he makes fun of.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Character
Rejoice that you have still have a long time to live, before the thought comes to you that there is nothing more in the world to see.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Age
If you miss the first buttonhole, you will not succeed in buttoning up your coat.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Inaction, Getting Going, Procrastination
The Woman-Soul leadeth us upward and on!
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Women
We will always have time enough, if we will but use it aright.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Time
Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Wishes
While it is undesirable that any man should receive what he has not examined, a far more frequent danger is that of flippant irreverence.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
One need only grow old to become gentler in one’s judgments. I see no fault committed which I could not have committed myself.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Age, Tolerance
The wealth that cannot be administered is a burden.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Wealth
Thought expands, but paralyzes; action animates, but narrows.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Thoughts, Thought
Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Present, The Present
What we do not understand we do not possess.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Love has power to give in a moment what toil can scarcely reach in an age.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Accomplishment
Then indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting o’er lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; What you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Humankind, Action
Woe to him who would ascribe to something like reason to Chance, and make a religion of surrendering to it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Luck, Fortune
Whatever we may say against collections, which present authors in a disjointed form, they nevertheless bring about many excellent results. We are not always so composed, so full of wisdom, that we are able to take in at once the whole scope of a work according to its merits. Do we not mark in a book passages which seem to have a direct reference to ourselves? Young people especially, who have failed in acquiring a complete cultivation of mind, are roused in a praiseworthy way by brilliant passages.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Quotations
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
How many years must a man do nothing, before he can at all know what is to be done and how to do it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Doing
He who does not know foreign languages does not know anything about his own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Language
An actor should take lessons from the painter and the sculptor. Not only should he make attitude his study, but he should highly develop his mind by an assiduous study of the best writers, ancient and modern, which will enable him not only to understand his parts, but to communicate a nobler coloring to his manners and mien.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Actors
Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The formation of one’s character ought to be everyone’s chief aim.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Character
Enthusiasm is of the greatest value, so long as we are not carried away by it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In the works of man as in those of nature, it is the intention which is chiefly worth studying.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Intentions
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