Top 500 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “Names are but noise and smoke, Obscuring heavenly light.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

302. “Nature is beneficent. I praise her and all her works. She is silent and wise. She is cunning, but for good ends. She has brought me here and will also lead me away. She may scold me, but she will not hate her work. I trust her.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

303. “Man errs, till he has ceased to strive.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

304. “The present moment is a powerful goddess.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

305. “God help us – for art is long, and life so short.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

306. “Desire is the presentiment of our inner abilities, and the forerunner of our ultimate accomplishments.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

307. “If you are to accomplish all that one demands of you, you must overestimate your own worth.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

308. “Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

309. “And here, poor fool, with all my lore I stand no wiser than before.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

310. “What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

311. “Gray is the color of all theory.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

312. “In comradeship is danger countered best.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

313. “Self knowledge is best learned not by contemplation, but by action.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

314. “To live as one likes is plebian the noble man aspires to order and law.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

315. “We can really respect a man only if he doesn’t always look out for himself.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

316. “The senses do not deceive us, but the judgment does.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

317. “All understanding begins in wonder!”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

318. “Sometimes I don’t understand how another can love her, is allowed to love her, since I love her so completely myself, so intensely, so fully, grasp nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her!”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

319. “Every step of life shows much caution is required.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

320. “The clever reader who is capable or reading between these lines what does not stand written in them but is nevertheless implied will be able to form some conception.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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321. “Yet here I stand poor fool what more, not one wit wiser than before.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

322. “Wherever a man may happen to turn, whatever a man may undertake, he will always end up by returning to that path which nature has marked out for him.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

323. “On all the peaks lies peace.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

324. “A world without love would be no world.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

325. “We all walk in mysteries. We are surrounded by an atmosphere about which we still know nothing at all.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

326. “Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

327. “Hope is the second soul of the unhappy.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

328. “If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

329. “He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

330. “The rich want good wine, the poor, plenty of wine.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

331. “If in the infinite you want to stride, Just walk in the finite to every side.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

332. “When you praise someone you call yourself his equal.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

333. “Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

334. “Tolerance comes of age. I see no fault committed that I myself could not have committed at some time or other.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

335. “The destiny of any nation at any given time depends on the opinion of its young people, those under twenty-five.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

336. “What people call the spirit of the times is mostly their own spirit in which the times mirror themselves.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

337. “When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one’s hands full just to be able to remove their trash.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

338. “Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

339. “Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night, nearer yet and nearer rising to the light – light, serene and holy where my soul may rest, purified and lowly, sanctified and blest.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

340. “How can we learn self-knowledge? Never by taking thought but rather by action. Try to do your duty and you’ll soon discover what you’re like.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

341. “Wishes are premonitions of abilities.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

342. “A phenomenon like Mozart remains an inexplicable thing.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

343. “The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

344. “Translators can be considered as busy matchmakers who praise as extremely desirable a half-veiled beauty. They arouse an irresistible yearning for the original.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

345. “For a brave man deserves a well-endowed girl.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

346. “I have found a paper of mine among some others in which I call architecture ‘petrified music.’ Really there is something in this; the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of music.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

347. “I always seek the good that is in people and leave the bad to Him who made mankind and knows how to round off the corners.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

348. “Mystery is truth’s dancing partner.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

349. “Be valiant and powerful forces will come to your aid.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

350. “But who will dare to speak the truth out clear? The few who anything of truth have learned, And foolishly did not keep truth concealed, Their thoughts and visions to the common herd revealed, Since time began we’ve crucified and burned.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe