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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An unused life is an early death.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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
With wisdom grows doubt.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If any man wishes to write a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Authors & Writing, Writers
A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Creativity, Authors & Writing
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
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
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: The Past, Time, Past
He who moves not forward goes backward.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Goals
In all things it is better to hope than to despair.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Depression, Despair, Hope
Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Time Management, Business, Action
People are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake what they see others do, whether they have an aptitude for it or not.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Ability
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
The deed is everything, the glory naught.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Helping, Action
Talents are best nurtured in solitude; character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Character, Talent, Solitude
Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Magic, Procrastination
Tell me what you’re laughing at and I shall tell you who you are.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If a man knows where to get good advice, it is as though he could supply it himself.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Advice
Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though it were his own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Happiness, Giving, Service, Kindness
The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Acceptance, Courage, Awareness, Realistic Expectations, Perfection, Realization
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
Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have any, but keep your doubts to yourself, for I have enough of my own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Doubt
There is nothing more frightening than a bustling ignorance.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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
For this reason the Bible is a book of eternal and effective power; because, as long as the world lasts, no one will say: I comprehend it in the whole and understand it in the particular. Rather we must modestly say it on the whole it is venerable, and in the particular practical.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Religion
That is the true season of love, when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will love in the same way after us.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Love
The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Challenges
Whatever you do or dream you can do – begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Beginning
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
One must be something, in order to do something.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Character
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: Tolerance, Age
Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Life
To tremble before anticipated evils, is to bemoan what thou hast never lost.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Anxiety, Fear
The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Difficulty, Difficulties, Adversity
What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Goals
Desire is the presentiment of our inner abilities, and the forerunner of our ultimate accomplishments.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Desire, Accomplishment
Men show their character in nothing more clearly than by what they think laughable.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Courage has genius, power, and magic in it. Only engage, and then the mind grows heated. Begin it and the work is completed.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Beginning, Goals, Courage to Begin, Genius
Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Excellence
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