Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
German poet, novelist and statesman, 1749-1832
100 quotes.
Quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- There are people who make no mistakes because they never wish to do anything worth doing.
- There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From it springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.
- There is no outward sign of true courtesy that does not rest on a deep moral foundation.
- There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.
- Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.
- Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
- To accept good advice is but to increase one’s own ability.
- To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult of all.
- Tolerance comes of age. I see no fault committed that I myself could not have committed at some time or other.
- Treat a man as he appears to be, and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.
- Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.
- Truth is a torch, but a terrific one; therefore we all try to reach it with closed eyes, lest we should be scorched.
- We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright.
- We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.
- What is not fully understood is not possessed.
- What is the best government? That which teaches us to govern ourselves.
- When we take people merely as they are, we make them worse; when we treat them as if they were what they should be, we improve them as far as they can be improved.
- Where there is much light, the shadow is deep.
- You cannot play the flute by blowing alone: you must use your fingers.
- The person who in shaky times also wavers only increases the evil, but the person of firm decision fashions the universe.