Top 500 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “None are so hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

52. “In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

53. “The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

54. “It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

55. “To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

56. “Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

57. “We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

58. “Ingratitude is always a kind of weakness. I have never known men of ability to be ungrateful.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

59. “There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

60. “To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is to not have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

61. “I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

62. “To quit smoking, you must first want to quit, but then you must also do the quitting.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

63. “Choose well. Your choice is brief, and yet endless.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

64. “One cannot always be a hero, but one can always be a man.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

65. “There is strong shadow where there is much light.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

66. “We see only what we know.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

67. “Leap and the net will appear.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

68. “Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

69. “Difficulties increase the nearer we get to the goal.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

70. “There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

71. “He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

72. “He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

73. “Few people have the imagination for reality.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

74. “Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

75. “Treat a person as they are, they will remain so. Treat a person the way that person can be and is capable of being and that person will become as he or she can be and should be.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

76. “The man who masters himself is delivered from the force that binds all creatures.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

77. “Every reader, if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

78. “Treat people the way they are and they will stay that way. Treat people the way they can become and they will become that way.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

79. “Live dangerously and you live right.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

80. “We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

81. “What is my life if I am no longer useful to others.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

82. “Never let a day pass without looking at some perfect work of art, hearing some great piece of music and reading, in part, some great book.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

83. “We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise, we harden.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

84. “If I love you, what business is it of yours?”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

85. “The important thing in life is to have a great aim, and the determination to attain it.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

86. “Do you want to live happily? Travel with two bags, one for giving, the other for receiving.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

87. “Every day look at a beautiful picture, read a beautiful poem, listen to some beautiful music, and if possible, say some reasonable thing.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

88. “One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

89. “It is not enough to take steps which may someday lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

90. “Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

91. “Truth must be repeated again and again, because error is constantly being preached round about.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

92. “The greatest evil that can befall man is that he should come to think ill of himself.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

93. “There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one’s self on lies and fables.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

94. “I hate everything that merely instructs me without augmenting or directly invigorating my activity.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

95. “Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

96. “If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

97. “All our knowledge is symbolic.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

98. “Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

99. “It is delivery that makes the orators success.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

100. “The ideal of beauty is simplicity and tranquility.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe