Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.

Live dangerously and you live right.

On all the peaks lies peace.

It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.

It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.

There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

I call architecture frozen music.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.

The human mind will not be confined to any limits.

It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.

There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one’s self on lies and fables.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.

If I love you, what business is it of yours?

What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own.

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.

Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.

If your treat an individual… as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.

The unnatural, that too is natural.

All things are only transitory.

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.

Mysteries are not necessarily miracles.

We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.

Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.

Every spoken word arouses our self-will.

We don’t get to know people when they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are like.

It is better to be deceived by one’s friends than to deceive them.

Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.

Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.

In art the best is good enough.

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

Do not give in too much to feelings. A overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth.

There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.

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

Science arose from poetry… when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.

Precaution is better than cure.

To rule is easy, to govern difficult.

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.

Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.

Devote each day to the object then in time and every evening will find something done.

If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.

We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.

It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.

I love those who yearn for the impossible.

If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.

Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.

We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.

The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.