Skip to content
“For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“I never knew a more presumptuous person than myself. The fact that I say that shows that what I say is true.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Nothing is to be rated higher than the value of the day.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“An unused life is an early death.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Fresh activity is the only means of overcoming adversity.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Live dangerously and you live right.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Love can do much, but duty more.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“He who enjoys doing and enjoys what he has done is happy.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“In art the best is good enough.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Age merely shows what children we remain.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Every spoken word arouses our self-will.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“I will listen to anyone's convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“If a man or woman is born ten years sooner or later, their whole aspect and performance shall be different.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“If you modestly enjoy your fame you are not unworthy to rank with the holy.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
