Top 500 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “Who never ate his bread in sorrow, Who never spent the darksome hours Weeping, and watching for the morrow,- He knows you not, ye heavenly Powers.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

102. “Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

103. “There are two things children should get from their parents: roots and wings.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

104. “Es irrt der Mensch, so lang er strebt. Man errs as long as he strives.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

105. “Nature understands no jesting. She is always true, always serious, always severe. She is always right, and the errors are always those of man.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

106. “The force of a language does not consist of rejecting what is foreign but of swallowing it.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

107. “By seeking and blundering we learn.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

108. “Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

109. “To live within limits. To want one thing. Or a few things very much and love them dearly. Cling to them, survey them from every angle. Become one with them – that is what makes the poet, the artist, the human being.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

110. “God made man simple, but how he changed and got complicated is hard to say.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

111. “No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

112. “It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

113. “You don’t have to travel around the world to understand that the sky is blue everywhere.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

114. “We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

115. “Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

116. “A man who cannot command himself will always be a slave.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

117. “Boldness has power, magic and genius in it.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

118. “If we take people only as they are, then we make them worse; if we treat them as if they were what they should be, then we bring them to where they can be brought.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

119. “He who does not know foreign languages does not know anything about his own.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

120. “All beginnings are delightful; the threshold is the place to pause.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

121. “All that is transitory is but a metaphor.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

122. “Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

123. “Try novelties for salesman’s bait, for novelty wins everyone.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

124. “There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

125. “I believe in God and in nature and in the triumph of good over evil.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

126. “Stood I, O Nature! man alone in thee, Then were it worth one’s while a man to be.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

127. “To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed That can make life a garden.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

128. “Nature is the living, visible garment of God.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

129. “A useless life is an early death.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

130. “Those who have no hope for a future life are already dead for the present one.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

131. “A joy shared is a joy doubled.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

132. “In the end we retain from our studies only that which we practically apply.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

133. “Faust: Who holds the devil, let him hold him well, He hardly will be caught a second time.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

134. “We always hope, and in all things it is better to hope than to despair.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

135. “Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

136. “This is the true measure of love, When we believe that we alone can love, That no one could ever have loved so before us, And that no one will ever love in the same way after us.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

137. “Nothing is worse than active ignorance.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

138. “Doubt grows with knowledge.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

139. “A man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

140. “That which thy fathers have bequeathed to thee, earn it anew if thou wouldst possess it.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

141. “The coward only threatens when he is safe.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

142. “Hell begins the day that God grants you the vision to see all that you could have done, should have done, and would have done, but did not do.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

143. “The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

144. “When one is polite in German, one lies.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

145. “It is the nature of grace always to fill spaces that have been empty.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

146. “Method will teach you to win time.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

147. “To rule is easy, to govern difficult.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

148. “Please send me your last pair of shoes, worn out with dancing as you mentioned in your letter, so that I might have something to press against my heart.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

149. “On top of the world, or in the depths of despair.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

150. “It is not enough to have knowledge; one must apply it. It is not enough to have wishes; one must also accomplish it.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe