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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and statesman. His works include: four novels; epic and lyric poetry; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; and treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings by him have survived.

A literary celebrity by the age of 25, Goethe was ennobled by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Karl August, in 1782 after taking up residence in Weimar in November 1775 following the success of his first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther . He was an early participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement. During his first ten years in Weimar, Goethe became a member of the Duke's privy council, sat on the war and highway commissions, oversaw the reopening of silver mines in nearby Ilmenau, and implemented a series of administrative reforms at the University of Jena. He also contributed to the planning of Weimar's botanical park and the rebuilding of its Ducal Palace.Goethe's first major scientific work, the Metamorphosis of Plants, was published after he returned from a 1788 tour of Italy. In 1791 he was made managing director of the theatre at Weimar, and in 1794 he began a friendship with the dramatist, historian, and philosopher Friedrich Schiller, whose plays he premiered until Schiller's death in 1805. During this period Goethe published his second novel, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship; the verse epic Hermann and Dorothea, and, in 1808, the first part of his most celebrated drama, Faust. His conversations and various shared undertakings throughout the 1790s with Schiller, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Johann Gottfried Herder, Alexander von Humboldt, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and August and Friedrich Schlegel have come to be collectively termed Weimar Classicism.

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer named Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship one of the four greatest novels ever written, while the American philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson selected Goethe as one of six "representative men" in his work of the same name . Goethe's comments and observations form the basis of several biographical works, notably Johann Peter Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe . Wikipedia  

✵ 28. August 1749 – 22. March 1832  •  Other names Johann W. von Goethe, Goethe, Иоганн Вольфганг фон Гёте, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Zitat, Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: 185 quotes50 likes

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

“Who strives always to the utmost,
For him there is salvation.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe book Faust

Wer immer strebend sich bemüht,
Den können wir erlösen.
Act V, Mountain Gorges
Faust, Part 2 (1832)

“A world without love would be no world.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe book Roman Elegies

Elegy 2
Roman Elegies (1789)

“I sing as the bird sings
That lives in the boughs.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Ich singe, wie der Vogel singt
Der in den Zweigen wohnet.
Bk. II, Ch. 11
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786–1830)

“Just as, out of habit, one consults a run-down clock as though it were still going, so too one may look at the face of a beautiful woman as though she were still in love.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Maxim 246, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso, Act I, sc. i (1790)

“What wise or stupid thing can man conceive
That was not thought of in ages long ago?”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe book Faust

Act II, The Gothic Chamber
Faust, Part 2 (1832)

“Truth is contrary to our nature, not so error, and this for a very simple reason; truth demands that we should recognize ourselves as limited, error flatters us that, in one way or another, we are unlimited.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Die Wahrheit widerspricht unserer Natur, der Irrthum nicht, und zwar aus einem sehr einfachen Grunde: die Wahrheit fordert, daß wir uns für beschränkt erkennen follen, der Irrthum schmeichelt uns. wir seien auf ein- oder die andere Weise unbegränzt.
Maxim 310, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“The ever-changing display of plant forms, which I have followed for so many years, awakens increasingly within me the notion: The plant forms which surround us were not all created at some given point in time and then locked into the given form, they have been given… a felicitous mobility and plasticity that allows them to grow and adapt themselves to many different conditions in many different places. …How they can be brought together under one concept has slowly become clear to me and that this conception can be enlivened at a higher level [of consciousness]: thus I began to recognize, in the sense perceptible form, a supersensible archetype. Whoever has felt what a rich, saturated thought… has to say, will admit what a passionate movement comes to life in the spirit when we are enthused, and we anticipate the totality of what will evolve step by step…”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Goethe&#x27;s Story of My Botanical Studies (1831) attributed by Frank Teichmann (tr. Jon McAlice) &quot;The Emergence of the Idea of Evolution in the Time of Goethe&quot; http://www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org/pdf/BAIdeaEvolTeich.pdf <br class="br">Attributed

“I have found a paper of mine among some others in which I call architecture 'petrified music.' Really there is something in this; the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of music.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Conversations with Eckermann (23 March 1829) - Often quoted as "Architecture is frozen music."

“Piety is not an end but a means to attain by the greatest peace of mind the highest degree of culture.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Maxim 519, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one's hands full just to be able to remove their trash.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Letter to Johann Kaspar Lavatar (6 March 1780)

“Talking is a necessity, listening is an art.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Reden ist uns ein Bedürfnis, Zuhören ist eine Kunst.
According to http://falschzitate.blogspot.de/2017/04/reden-ist-uns-ein-bedurfnis-zuhoren-ist.html pure invention.
Misattributed

“Nowhere would anyone grant that science and poetry can be united. They forgot that science arose from poetry, and failed to see that a change of times might beneficently reunite the two as friends, at a higher level and to mutual advantage.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Von andern Seiten her vernahm ich ähnliche Klänge, nirgends wollte man zugeben, daß Wissenschaft und Poesie vereinbar seien. Man vergaß, daß Wissenschaft sich aus Poesie entwickelt habe, man bedachte nicht, daß, nach einem Umschwung von Zeiten, beide sich wieder freundlich, zu beiderseitigem Vorteil, auf höherer Stelle, gar wohl wieder begegnen könnten.
Zur Morphologie (On Morphology), (1817)

“Very often when we have found ourselves forever separated from what we had intended to achieve, we have already, on our way, found something else worth desiring.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Und doch sehr oft, wenn wir uns von dem Beabsichtigten für ewig getrennt sehen, haben wir schon auf unserm Wege irgend ein anderes Wünschenswerthe gefunden, etwas uns Gemäßes, mit dem uns zu begnügen wir eigentlich geboren sind.
Maxim 68, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“Art is in itself noble; that is why the artist has no fear of what is common. This, indeed, is already ennobled when he takes it up.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Die Kunst an und für sich selbst ist edel; deßhalb fürchtet sich der Künstler nicht vor dem Gemeinen. Ja indem er es aufnimmt, ist es schon geadelt, und so sehen wir die größten Künstler mit Kühnheit ihr Majestätsrecht ausüben.
Maxim 61, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“And now the sagacious reader, who is capable of reading into these lines what does not stand written in them, but is nevertheless implied, will be able to form some conception of the serious feelings with which I then set foot in Emmendingen.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Autobiography: Truth and Poetry Book xviii. London 1884 p. 115 books.google.de http://books.google.de/books?id=ff-TMQCqkPQC&amp;pg=PA115

“This is why we may say that those who parade piety as a purpose and an aim mostly turn into hypocrites”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Maxim 520, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“I’m sorry for people who make a great to-do about the transitory nature of things and get lost in meditations of earthly nothingness. Surely we are here precisely so as to turn what passes into something that endures; but this is possible only if you can appreciate both.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Ich bedauere die Menschen, welche von der Vergänglichkeit der Dinge viel Wesens machen und sich in Betrachtung irdischer Nichtigkeit verlieren. Sind wir ja eben deßhalb da, um das Vergängliche unvergänglich zu machen; das kann ja nur dadurch geschehen, wenn man beides zu schätzen weiß.
Maxim 155, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“The desire to explain what is simple by what is complex, what is easy by what is difficult, is a calamity affecting the whole body of science, known, it is true, to men of insight, but not generally admitted.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Maxim 611, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe book Elective Affinities

Niemand ist mehr Sklave, als der sich für frei hält, ohne es zu sein.
Bk. II, Ch. 5; source: Die Wahlverwandtschaften, Hamburger Ausgabe, Bd. 6 (Romane und Novellen I), dtv Verlag, München, 1982, p. 397 (II.5)
Elective Affinities (1809)

“He is a prophet and not a poet and therefore his Koran is to be seen as Divine Law, and not as a book of a human being made for education or entertainment.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

On Muhammad, in Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Noten und Abhandlungen zum West-östlichen Diwan (1958), WA I, 7, 32; translator unknown

“One must be something in order to do something.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Conversations with Eckermann (20 October 1828)

“I am the Spirit that always denies!”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe book Faust

Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint.
Faust's Study
Faust, Part 1 (1808)

“Instruction does much, but encouragement everything.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Letter to A. F. Oeser (9 November 1768), Early and miscellaneous letters of J. W. Goethe, including letters to his mother. With notes and a short biography (1884)

“The person engaged in action is always unconscionable; no one except the contemplative has a conscience.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Der Handelnde ist immer gewissenlos; es hat niemand Gewissen als der Betrachtende.
Maxim 241, trans. Stopp
Variant translation: The man of action is always unprincipled; none but the contemplative has a conscience
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through all eternity.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe book Elective Affinities

Bk. I, Ch. 9
Elective Affinities (1809)

“Nothing venture, nothing gain.
Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,
Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours
Weeping upon his bed has sate,
He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen aß

Wer nichts wagt, gerwinnt nichts.
Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen aß,
Wer nie die kummervollen Nächte
Auf seinem Bette weinend saß,
Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte.
Bk. II, Ch. 13; translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786–1830)

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Bk. V, Ch. 1
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786–1830)
Original: (de) Man sollte alle Tage wenigstens ein kleines Lied hören, ein gutes Gedicht lesen, ein treffliches Gemälde sehen und, wenn es möglich zu machen wäre, einige vernünftige Worte sprechen.

“To know of someone here and there whom we accord with, who is living on with us, even in silence — this makes our earthly ball a peopled garden.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Bk. VII, Ch. 5
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786–1830)

“One never goes so far as when one doesn't know where one is going.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Letter to Carl Friedrich Zelter (3 December 1812)

“A mathematician is only perfect insofar as he is a perfect man, sensitive to the beauty of truth.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Maxim 609, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“The fate of the architect is the strangest of all. How often he expends his whole soul, his whole heart and passion, to produce buildings into which he himself may never enter.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe book Elective Affinities

Bk. II, Ch. 3
Elective Affinities (1809)

“The fashion of this world passeth away and I would fain occupy myself with the things that are abiding.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Quoted in the Preface to The Works of Francis Rabelais (1931), Albert Jay Nock and Catherine R. Wilson (Eds.)
Attributed

“For I have been a man, and that means to have been a fighter.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

West-östlicher Diwan, Buch des Paradies (1819)

“You often say to yourself in the course of your life that you ought to avoid having too much business, 'polypragmosyne' [incessant activity], and, more especially, that the older you get, the more you ought to avoid entering on new business. But it's all very well saying this, and giving yourself andothers good advice. The very fact of growing older means taking up a new business; all our circumstances change, and we must either stop doing anything at all or else willing and consciously take on the new role we have to play on life’s stage.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Maxim 259, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“I feel I'm happily inspired now on Classical soil:
The Past and Present speak louder, more charmingly.
Here, as advised, I leaf through the works of the Ancients
With busy hands, and, each day, with fresh delight.
But at night Love keeps me busy another way:
I become half a scholar but twice as contented.
And am I not learning, studying the shape
Of her lovely breasts: her hips guiding my hand?”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe book Roman Elegies

Elegy 5
Roman Elegies (1789)

“You’ve only got to grow old to be more lenient; I see no fault committed of which I too haven’t been guilty.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Man darf nur alt werden, um milder zu sein; ich sehe keinen Fehler begehen, den ich nicht auch begangen hätte.
Maxim 240, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“Translators are like busy match-makers: they sing the praises of some half-veiled beauty, and extol her charms, and arouse an irresistible longing for the original.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Maxim 426; translation by Bailey Saunders
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“What's it to you if I love you?”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Philine in Bk. IV, Ch. 9
Variant translation: If I love you, what business is it of yours?
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786–1830)

“Of freedom and of life he only is deserving
Who every day must conquer them anew.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe book Faust

Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben
Der täglich sie erobern muß.
Variant translations:
Freedom and life are earned by those alone
Who conquer them each day anew.
trans. Walter Kaufmann
He only earns his freedom and existence,
Who daily conquers them anew.
trans. Bayard Taylor
Act V, Court of the Palace
Faust, Part 2 (1832)

“Patriotism ruins history.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Conversation with Friedrich Wilhem Riemer (July, 1817)

“Wie viele Sprachen du sprichst, sooft mal bist du Mensch.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Translation: As many languages you know, as many times you are a human being.<br><br>Also attributed to Charles V, w:Pierre de Bourdeille and Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk.<br><br>Source: John G. Robertson &quot;Robertson&#x27;s Words for a Modern Age: A Cross Reference of Latin and Greek Combining Elements&quot; https://books.google.com.ua/books?id=RFqlPtTSB2kC&amp;pg=PA250&amp;lpg=PA250&amp;dq=Quot+linguas+calles,+tot+homines+vales.&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=EtA4qFqwbn&amp;sig=C9citjpkEkL6ZjovF9_4_AQ1cCw&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwji4ICXl5XRAhULESwKHRp9C6cQ6AEILjAC#v=onepage&amp;q=Quot%20linguas%20calles%2C%20tot%20homines%20vales.&amp;f=false<br><br>Source: Ralph H. Orth &quot;Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VI: 1824-1838&quot; https://books.google.com.ua/books?id=tRkEF22PEKUC&amp;pg=PA67&amp;lpg=PA67&amp;dq=Pierre+de+Bourdeille+%22Quot+linguas+calles,+tot+homines+vales%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=2sQJLK949I&amp;sig=suLWcF0FCKwf5_J7rPscH0C5ru4&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwi53_uWmpXRAhXMhywKHY-TBDwQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&amp;q=Pierre%20de%20Bourdeille%20%22Quot%20linguas%20calles%2C%20tot%20homines%20vales%22&amp;f=false<br><br>Source: Český jazyk a literatura (Czech Language and Literature), Volume 56, Issues 1-5, p 54 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=x6hhAAAAMAAJ&amp;q=Kolik+jazyk%C5%AF+zn%C3%A1%C5%A1,+tolikr%C3%A1t+jsi+%C4%8Dlov%C4%9Bkem.+masarykovo&amp;dq=Kolik+jazyk%C5%AF+zn%C3%A1%C5%A1,+tolikr%C3%A1t+jsi+%C4%8Dlov%C4%9Bkem.+masarykovo&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=TQ4YT8mxEcPj4QSw89jIDQ&amp;ved=0CDcQ6AEwAQ (2006): &quot;Masaryk&#x27;s &quot;As many languages you know, as many times you are a human being&quot; does not refer only to the ability to communicate in different languages, but also the ability to share in various spiritual spheres of different cultures.&quot;<br><br>Source: Example references: _sooft_mal_bist_du_Mensch. _J.W._Goethe.html http://blog.goethe.de/deutsch-wagen-tour/archives/1750-Wie_viele_Sprachen_du_sprichst,, http://www.radio.cz/de/rubrik/gesagt/wie-viele-sprachen-du-sprichst-sooft-mal-bist-du-mensch, http://www.szkola.misjonarki.pl/attachments/article/148/Wie%20viele%20Sprachen%20du%20sprichst%20konkurs%20gimnzjum.pdf. <br class="br">Attributed

“The child’s desire to have distinctions made in his ideas grew stronger every day. Having learned that things had names, he wished to hear the name of every thing supposing that there could be nothing which his father did not know. He often teased him with his questions, and caused him to inquire concerning objects which, but for this, he would have passed without notice. Our innate tendency to pry into the origin and end of things was likewise soon developed in the boy. When he asked whence came the wind, and whither went the flame, his father for the first time truly felt the limitation of his own powers, and wished to understand how far man may venture with his thoughts, and what things he may hope ever to give account of to himself or others. The anger of the child, when he saw injustice done to any living thing, was extremely grateful to the father, as the symptom of a generous heart. Felix once struck fiercely at the cook for cutting up some pigeons. The fine impression this produced on Wilhelm was, indeed, erelong disturbed, when he found the boy unmercifully tearing sparrows in pieces and beating frogs to death. This trait reminded him of many men, who appear so scrupulously just when without passion, and witnessing the proceedings of other men. The pleasant feeling, that the boy was producing so fine and wholesome an influence on his being, was, in a short time, troubled for a moment, when our friend observed, that in truth the boy was educating him more than he the boy.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Book VIII – Chapter 1
Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Journeyman Years) (1821–1829)

“Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome. Every beginning is cheerful: the threshold is the place of expectation. The boy stands astonished, his impressions guide him: he learns sportfully, seriousness comes on him by surprise. Imitation is born with us: what should be imitated is not easy to discover. The excellent is rarely found, more rarely valued. The height charms us, the steps to it do not: with the summit in our eye, we love to walk along the plain. It is but a part of art that can be taught: the artist needs it all. Who knows it half, speaks much, and is always wrong: who knows it wholly, inclines to act, and speaks seldom or late. The former have no secrets and no force : the instruction they can give is like baked bread, savory and satisfying for a single day; but flour cannot be sown, and seed-corn ought not to be ground. Words are good, but they are not the best. The best is not to be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the highest matter. Action can be understood and again represented by the spirit alone. No one knows what he is doing while he acts aright, but of what is wrong we are always conscious. Whoever works with symbols only is a pedant, a hypocrite, or a bungler. There are many such, and they like to be together. Their babbling detains the scholar: their obstinate mediocrity vexes even the best. The instruction which the true artist gives us opens the mind; for, where words fail him, deeds speak. The true scholar learns from the known to unfold the unknown, and approaches more and more to being a master.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Book VII Chapter IX
Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Journeyman Years) (1821–1829)

“Nun aber wird der einsichtige Leser, welcher fähig ist, zwischen diese Zeilen hineinzulesen, was nicht geschrieben steht, aber angedeutet ist, sich eine Ahnung der ernsten Gefühle gewinnen, mit welchen ich damals Emmendingen betrat.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

http://www.zeno.org/Literatur/M/Goethe,+Johann+Wolfgang/Autobiographisches/Aus+meinem+Leben.+Dichtung+und+Wahrheit/Vierter+Teil/Achzehntes+Buch www.zeno.org

“People have to become really bad before they care for nothing but mischief, and delight in it.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Original: (de) Wenn die Menschen recht schlecht werden, haben sie keinen Anteil mehr als die Schadenfreude.

“It is not enough to have knowledge, one must also apply it. It is not enough to have wishes, one must also accomplish.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe