Inspirational Quotations by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (#647)

Today marks the birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832,) 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, Eng. trans. 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. Faust tells the story of a brilliant scholar named Heinrich Faust who is very successful yet unhappy in life. He forsakes God, makes a perilous 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.

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.

Inspirational Quotations by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The decline of literature indicates the decline of the nation. The two keep pace in their downward tendency.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

In praising or loving a child, we love and praise not that which is, but that which we hope for.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

It is only necessary to grow old to become more charitable and even indulgent. I see no fault committed by others that I have not committed myself.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

There is nothing more frightful than imagination without taste.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

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 (German Poet)

Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

A talent can be cultivated in tranquility; a character only in the rushing stream of life.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The man who acts never has any conscience; no one has any conscience but the man who thinks.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The greatest genius will never be worth much if he pretends to draw exclusively from his own resources.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

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 (German Poet)

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 (German Poet)

If any man wishes to write a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

If you want a wise answer, ask a reasonable question.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

A man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Talents are best nurtured in solitude; character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

People should talk less and draw more. Personally, I would like to renounce speech altogether and, like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say visually.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

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 (German Poet)

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 (German Poet)

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 (German Poet)

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

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 (German Poet)

Mountains cannot be surmounted except by winding paths.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

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 (German Poet)

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 (German Poet)

Science has been seriously retarded by the study of what is not worth knowing and of what is not knowable.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

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 (German Poet)

Everyone hears only what he understands.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The phrases that men hear or repeat continually, end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

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 (German Poet)

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 (German Poet)

Nothing tells more about the character of a man than the things he makes fun of.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The highest happiness of man is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Ambition and love are the wings to great deeds.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Rest not. Life is sweeping by; go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

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 (German Poet)

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 (German Poet)

How shall we learn to know ourselves? By reflection? Never; but only through action. Strive to do thy duty; then you shall know what is in thee.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The older we get the more we must limit ourselves if we wish to be active.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

People do not mind their faults being spread out before them, but they become impatient if called on to give them up.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The first and last thing required of genius is, love of the truth.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)