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 human being is a bridge between two worlds: the visible and the invisible.
The greatest gift you can give to another is the purity of your attention.
The human heart is a garden, and it must be cultivated with care.
The highest art is to conceal art.
The human being is a being of paradoxes, and he must learn to embrace them.
I hate everything that merely instructs me without increasing my activity or enlivening me.
The highest wisdom is to know that all we know is nothing.
One must be a complete man to be a complete artist.
He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.
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.
Behavior is a mirror in which everyone shows his image.
To live in the world without feeling its meaning is like wandering in a great library without touching a book.
The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man almost nothing.
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.
The greatest happiness of man is to be able to live for a purpose.
The beautiful is a manifestation of secret laws of nature, which, but for this appearance, would have remained eternally hidden from us.
The truly great man is he who would be great if he lived in the wilderness.
The highest good is to live with a purpose.
A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.
The human mind is a great thing, but it is not everything.
Contemporaries of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832).