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)
Every man hears what he understands.
Everything that is wise has been thought already, one must only try to think it again.
Fools and wise men are equally harmless. It is the half-fools and half-wise men who are the most dangerous.
He who cannot give an account of three thousand years of history remains in darkness, inexperienced, and lives from day to day.
He who is not satisfied with himself will not be satisfied with anything.
I have been called a favorite of fortune, and I confess that I have been so. But I have also been a favorite of misfortune, and I confess that I have been so too.
I hate all bungling. It is a waste of life.
If I have to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the courage to betray my country.
If you want to understand the artist, look at his work.
It is not enough to know, we must also apply. It is not enough to will, we must also do.
It is not the eye that sees, but the soul.
Man is made for action, and if he is not active, he is nothing.
One must be a complete person to be able to understand another complete person.
Only those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.
People are so constituted that they can only be happy if they are not allowed to be idle.
Piety is not an end, but a means; a means of attaining the highest culture through the purest peace of soul.
The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend their lives in a state of anxious restlessness and disquietude.
The more I think, the more I realize that there is nothing more artistic than to love others.
The only thing worse than ignorance is knowing something that ain't so.
The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers, and cities; but to know someone who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant, is nevertheless near, that makes the earth an inhabited garden.
Contemporaries of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832).