Johann Wolfgang von Goethe citations Page 3

“Écraser l'innocent qui résiste, c'est un moyen que les tyrans emploient pour se faire place en mainte circonstance.”

“De ce lieu et de ce jour date une nouvelle ère dans l'histoire du monde et vous pourrez dire : J'y étais!”

Faust, 1808 et 1832

“Tout ce qui est isolé est mauvais.”

Après la bataille de Valmy , première victoire de la Nation naissante contre ses ennemis.

“Aie confiance en toi-même, et tu sauras vivre.”

“Un bon Allemand ne peut souffrir les Français, mais pourtant il boit leurs vins très-volontiers.”

Faust, 1808 et 1832

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Citations

“À vrai dire, la tolérance ne devrait être qu'une attitude temporaire : elle doit conduire à la reconnaissance. Souffrir autrui, c'est l'outrager.”

Faust, 1808 et 1832

“Toute théorie est sèche, et l'arbre précieux de la vie est fleuri.”

Toleranz sollte eigentlich nur eine vorübergehende Gesinnung sein : sie muß zur Anerkennung führen. Dulden heißt beleidigen.
de
Maximes et Réflexions, 1833

“Ce qui importe c'est que l'homme croie; ce qu'il croie est absolument indifférent.”

Faust, 1808 et 1832

“Qui ne connaît pas de langues étrangères ne sait rien de la sienne.”

“Nothing is more frightful than to see ignorance in action.”

Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen.
de
Maximes et Réflexions, 1833

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Citations en anglais

“There's nothing clever that hasn't been thought of before — you've just got to try to think it all over again.”

Es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine tätige Unwissenheit.
Maxim 542, trans. Stopp
Variant translation by Saunders: Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action. (231)
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“Mysteries do not as yet amount to miracles.”

Maxim 441, trans. Stopp

Variant translation: All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“The first and last thing demanded of genius is love of truth.”

Maxim 210, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“If some people hadn’t felt obliged to repeat what is untrue simply because they had at one point maintained it, they would have turned into quite different people.”

Maxim 382, trans. Stopp
Variant translation: First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“The world is a bell that is cracked: it clatters, but does not ring out clearly.”

Wenn mancher sich nicht verpflichtet fühlte, das Unwahre zu wiederholen, weil er’s einmal gefügt hat, fo wären es ganz andere Leute geworden.
Maxim 586, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“Art is long, life short; judgment difficult, opportunity transient.”

Die Welt ist eine Glocke, die einen Riß hat: sie klappert, aber klingt nicht.
Maxim 193, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“In art the best is good enough.”

Die Kunst ist lang, das Leben kurz, das Urteil schwierig, die Gelegenheit flüchtig.
Bk. VII, Ch. 9
Cf. Hippocrates, Ars longa vita brevis, Aphorisms 1:1
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786–1830)

“Association with women is the basic element of good manners.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe livre Italian Journey

In der Kunst ist das Beste gut genug.
Italian Journey (March 3, 1787)

“The true, prescriptive artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless artist, following blind instinct, after an appearance of naturalness. The one leads to the highest peaks of art, the other to its lowest depths.”

Der umgang mit frauen ist das element guter sitten.
Maxim 31, trans. Stopp
Variant translation: The society of women is the foundation of good manners.
Variant translative: Intercourse with women is the element of good manners.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.”

Propylaea (1798) Introduction

“There is strong shadow where there is much light.”

Maxim 739, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“Tell me you stones, O speak, you towering palaces!
Streets, say a word! Spirit of this place, are you dumb?
All things are alive in your sacred walls
Eternal Rome, it's only for me all is still.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Götz von Berlichingen

Wo viel Licht ist, ist starker Schatten.
Götz von Berlichingen, Act I (1773)

“Theories usually result from the precipitate reasoning of an impatient mind which would like to be rid of phenomena and replaces them with images, concepts, indeed often with mere words.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe livre Roman Elegies

Elegy 1
Roman Elegies (1789)

“Fair I was also, and that was my ruin.”

Maxim 428, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“No one would talk much in society, if he knew how often he misunderstands others.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe livre Faust

Schön war ich auch, und das war mein Verderben.
A Prison
Faust, Part 1 (1808)

“I hold to faith in the divine love — which, so many years ago for a brief moment in a little corner of the earth, walked about as a man bearing the name of Jesus Christ — as the foundation on which alone my happiness rests.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe livre Elective Affinities

Bk. II, Ch. 4
Elective Affinities (1809)

“A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows on rows of natural objects, classified with name and form.”

(1773), translated by Albert Schweizer in Goethe: Five Studies http://archive.is/tOo5z (1961), Beacon Press, p. 53

“Let the noble man
Be generous and good,
Tirelessly achieving
What is just and useful:
Let him be a model
For those beings whom he surmises.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe livre Elective Affinities

Bk. II, Ch. 7
Elective Affinities (1809)

“All poetry is supposed to be instructive but in an unnoticeable manner; it is supposed to make us aware of what it would be valuable to instruct ourselves in; we must deduce the lesson on our own, just as with life.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Das Göttliche

Das Göttliche (The Divine) (1783)

“The artist may be well advised to keep his work to himself till it is completed, because no one can readily help him or advise him with it…but the scientist is wiser not to withhold a single finding or a single conjecture from publicity.”

Letter to Carl Friedrich Zelter (26 November 1825)

“A useless life is an early death.”

Essay on Experimentation

“In limitations he first shows himself the master,
And the law can only bring us freedom.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Iphigenia in Tauris

Ein unnütz Leben ist ein früher Tod...
Act I, sc. ii
Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787)

“However often we turn to it [the Qur'an] at first disgusting us each time afresh, it soon attracts, astounds, and in the end enforces our reverence… Its style, in accordance with its contents and aim is stern, grand, terrible — ever and anon truly sublime — Thus this book will go on exercising through all ages a most potent influence.”

Was Wir Bringen (1802)

“Hypotheses are scaffoldings erected in front of a building and then dismantled when the building is finished. They are indispensable for the workman; but you mustn't mistake the scaffolding for the building.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, quoted in Dictionary of Islam (1895), by T.P. Hughes, p. 526

“My son, whoever wishes to keep a secret, must hide from us that he possesses one. Self complaisance over the concealed destroys its concealment.”

Maxim 1222, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“Everything that liberates our mind without at the same time imparting self-control is pernicious.”

Bk. I, Ch. 5 http://books.google.com/books?id=q4JKAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Whoever+wishes+to+keep+a+secret+must+hide+from+us+that+he+possesses+one%22&pg=PA73#v=onepage <br class="br">Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Journeyman Years) (1821–1829)

“The deed is everything, the glory nothing.”

Maxim 504, trans. Stopp
Variant translation: Everything that emancipates the spirit without giving us control over ourselves is harmful.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“Modern poets put a lot of water into their ink.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe livre Faust

Act IV, A High Mountain Range
Faust, Part 2 (1832)

“They abandon themselves credulously to every fanatic scoundrel who speaks to their baser qualities, confirms them in their vices, teaches them nationality means barbarism and isolation.”

Neuere Poeten tun viel Wasser in die Tinte.
Maxim 749, trans. Stopp
Variant translation: Modern poets mix a lot of water with their ink.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)