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)
We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.
The human heart is a strange thing. It is capable of great love and great hatred.
The true man is a child of his age.
To be loved, one must be amiable.
The greatest happiness of man is to be loved for himself, or, more correctly, to be loved in spite of himself.
One must always change, renew, rejuvenate oneself; otherwise, one hardens.
The highest wisdom is to know that one knows nothing.
One learns nothing except by doing.
One must be a whole, if one wishes to accomplish anything.
The only way to deal with the world is to be in it.
Error is excusable, but not indifference.
To live is to be active.
One must be something to do something.
The greatest evil is not to act.
One must not be afraid of the unknown.
The highest goal of man is to be himself.
The greatest happiness is to be loved.
Everything that is great and wise is simple.
The highest to which man can attain is wonder; if the primary phenomenon causes him to wonder, let him be content; nothing higher can it give him, and nothing further should he seek behind it: here is the limit.
A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
Contemporaries of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832).