Source: Goethe's world view: presented in his reflections and maxims
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Famous Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
Source: Faust: Parts one and two
“Every decided colour does a certain violence to the eye, and forces the organ to opposition.”
Source: Theory of Colours
“Is it life, I ask, is it even prudence, To bore thyself and bore the students?”
Source: Faust: A Tragedy
“Lay hold of life with both hands, whenever thou mayest seize it, it is interesting.”
Source: Maxims and Reflections
“A mathematician is only perfect insofar as he is a perfect man, sensitive to the beauty of truth.”
“A world without love would be no world.”
Source: Roman elegies ; and the Diary
“The man who masters himself is delivered from the force that binds all creatures.”
Source: Goethe's Opinions on the World, Mankind, Literature, Science, and Art
“No one feels himself easy in a garden which does not look like the open country.”
Source: Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)
Source: The Poems of Goethe, Translated in the Original Metres, with a Sketch of Goethe's Life. By E. A. Bowring
“How many years you have to keep on doing, until you know what to do and how to do!”
“A great scholar is seldom a great philosopher.”
Source: Early and miscellaneous letters
“I don't know a greater advantage, than to appreciate the worth of an enemy.”
“Men are much more apt to agree in what they do than in what they think.”
“Of the truly creative no one is ever master; it must be left to go its own way.”
Source: Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)
“Whoever aspiring, struggles on, for him there is salvation.”
“Against great advantages in another, there are no means of defending ourselves except love.”
Source: Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)
Source: Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
“Thank God when He lays a burden on thee, and thank Him when He takes it off.”
“Try novelties for salesman's bait, For novelty wins everyone.”
Source: Faust