Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Germany's greatest writer, Faust
Most quoted
"The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered with books. The books are written in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it dimly comprehends but does not understand."
— from Conversations with Eckermann
"The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid 'dens of crime' that Dickens loved to paint... but in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices."
— from Attributed (often misattributed to C.S. Lewis, but reflects a similar sentiment found in Goethe's critiques of bureaucracy and detached evil)
"The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it."
— from Elective Affinities, 1809
All quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (267)
The highest goal of man is to be master of himself.
Truth is a torch that gleams through the fog without dispelling it.
The greatest good is to live with honor, and to die with glory.
Nature has no secrets. She is always open, but her language is not understood by everyone.
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
The human being is a being of becoming, not a being of being.
The highest wisdom is to know that we are surrounded by mysteries.
Man is a creature of light and darkness, and he must learn to live with both.
The greatest happiness of man is to be able to live in the present.
What is true is not always beautiful, and what is beautiful is not always true.
The human heart is a vast ocean, full of wonders and mysteries.
To understand is to perceive patterns.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
Life is a journey, not a destination.
The human spirit is an unquenchable fire.
We are all pilgrims on this earth, and we must learn to walk together.
The greatest tragedy of life is not that it ends, but that we do not live it to the fullest.
The human mind is a mirror of the universe.
The only way to escape the corruptible effect of praise is to go on working.
One must be a complete man, in order to be a complete artist.
Contemporaries of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832).