Top 500 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 4 of 10

151. “Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

152. “There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

153. “The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

154. “I love those who yearn for the impossible.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

155. “Where the light is brightest, the shadows are deepest.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

156. “Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

157. “Art is a mediator of the unspeakable.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

158. “Nature is, after all, the only book that offers important content on every page.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

159. “Over all the mountain tops is peace. In all treetops you perceive scarcely a breath. The little birds in the forest are silent. Wait then; soon, you too, will have peace.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

160. “You must either conquer and rule or serve and lose, suffer or triumph, be the anvil or the hammer.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

161. “Once you have missed the first buttonhole, you’ll never manage to button up.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

162. “It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

163. “The eternal feminine draws us up.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

164. “People should talk less and draw more. Personally, I would like to renounce speech altogether and, like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say visually.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

165. “Our wishes are presentiments of the abilities that lie in us, harbingers of what we will be able to accomplish.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

166. “Alas, I have studied philosophy, the law as well as medicine, and to my sorrow, theology; studied them well with ardent zeal, yet here I am, a wretched fool, no wiser than I was before.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

167. “All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

168. “Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

169. “Only law can give us freedom.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

170. “All is born of water; all is sustained by water.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

171. “Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

172. “Talent develops in quiet, alone; character is sharpened in the torrent of the world.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

173. “Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

174. “Distrust those in whom the desire to punish is strong.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

175. “Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

176. “Rest not Life is sweeping by go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

177. “Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

178. “The world only goes forward because of those who oppose it.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

179. “Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

180. “Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

181. “Love does not dominate; it cultivates.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

182. “A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

183. “A great deal may be done by severity, more by love, but most by clear discernment and impartial justice.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

184. “In the end we are all separate: our stories, no matter how similar, come to a fork and diverge. We are drawn to each other because of our similarities, but it is our differences we must learn to respect.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

185. “To the world you might be one person, but to one person, you might be the world. Kindness is the golden chain by which our world is bound together.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

186. “Man knows himself only insofar as he knows the world, becoming aware of it if only within himself, and of himself self only within it. Each new subject, well observed, opens up within us a new organ of thought.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

187. “To live in a great idea means to treat the impossible as though it were possible. It is just the same with a strong character; and when an idea and a character meet, things arise which fill the world with wonder for thousands of years.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

188. “National literature does not mean much these days; now is the age of world literature, and every one must contribute to hasten thearrival of that age.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

189. “The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

190. “Someday perhaps the inner light will shine forth from us, and the we’ll need no other light.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

191. “Perseverance is a silent power that grows irresistibly greater with time.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

192. “Only the soul that loves is happy.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

193. “All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

194. “The important thing in life is to have a great aim, and to possess the aptitude and perseverance to attain it.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

195. “Love of truth shows itself in this, that a man knows how to find and value the good in everything.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

196. “Mere curiosity adds wings to every step.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

197. “It is said, that no one is a hero to their butler. The reason is, that it requires a hero to recognize a hero. The butler, however, will probably know well how to estimate his equals.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

198. “The history of mankind is his character.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

199. “Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

200. “When you lose interest in anything, you also lose the memory for it.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe