Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
German poet, novelist and statesman, 1749-1832
100 quotes.
Quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- A man hears only what he understands.
- A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.
- A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is also ignorant of his own language.
- A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.
- A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.
- A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world's torrent.
- A useless life is an early death.
- A word from a friend is doubly enjoyable in dark days.
- Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then criticism will gradually yield to him.
- All beginnings are easy; it is the ulterior steps that are of most difficult ascent and most rarely taken.
- All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.
- An individual helps not; only he who unites with many at the proper time.
- Be modest without diffidence, proud without presumption.
- Behaviour is a mirror in which everyone shows his image.
- Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it is sure to repent of every ill-judged outlay.
- By nothing do men show their character more than by the things they laugh at.
- By seeking and blundering we learn.
- Choose well; your choice is brief and yet endless.
- Commend me rather to him who goes wrong in a way that is his own, than to him who walks correctly in a way that is not.
- Correction does much, but encouragement does more. Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.
- Courage is the commitment to begin without any guarantee of success.
- Decision and perseverance are the noblest qualities of man.
- Devote each day to the object then in time, and every evening will find something done.
- Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one.
- Do the duty which lies nearest to thee.
- Doubt of any sort cannot be removed except by action.
- Duty is the demand of the passing hour.
- Each man has his fortune in his own hands, as the artist has a piece of rude matter, which he is to fashion into a certain shape.
- Each one sees what he carries in his heart.
- Energy will do anything that can be done in this world; no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities will make a two-legged animal a man without it.
- Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.
- Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille,Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt.Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
- Every man has enough power left to carry out that of which he is convinced.
- Every moment, as it passes, is of infinite value, for it is the representative of a whole eternity.
- Everything in the world may be endured, except continual prosperity.
- Everything in the world may be endured, except only a succession of prosperous days.
- Few are open to conviction, but the majority of men are open to persuasion.
- Fret not over the irretrievable, but ever act as if thy life were just begun.
- Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have any, but keep your doubts to yourself, for I have enough of my own.
- He only earns his freedom and existence who daily conquers them anew.