Top 500 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes (2026 Update)
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401. “Belief is not the beginning of knowledge – it is the end.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

402. “War is in truth a disease in which the juices that serve health and maintenance are used for the sole purpose of nourishing something foreign, something at odds with nature.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

403. “There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

404. “One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

405. “Truth is a torch but a tremendous one. That is why we hurry past it, shielding our eyes, indeed, in fear of getting burned.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

406. “Let no one be ashamed to say yes today if yesterday he said no. Or to say no today if yesterday he said yes. For that is life. Never to have changed-what a pitiable thing of which to boast!”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

407. “Architecture is crystallized music.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

408. “Make the most of time, it flies away so fast; yet method will teach you to win time.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

409. “Battle not with monsters, for then you become one.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

410. “Once more I am a wanderer, a pilgrim, through the world. But what else are you?”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

411. “Personality is everything in art and poetry.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

412. “There is no trifling with nature; it is always true, grave, and severe; it is always in the light, and the faults and errors fall to our share. It defies incompetency, but reveals its secrets to the competent, the truthful, and the pure.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

413. “To know of someone here and there whom we accord with, who is living on with us, even in silence – – this makes our earthly ball a peopled garden.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

414. “The unnatural, that too is natural.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

415. “Many hammer all over the wall and believe that with each blow they hit the nail on the head.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

416. “I am not omniscient, but I know a lot.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

417. “Mozart is a human incarnation of the divine force of creation.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

418. “If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

419. “What is predestination? Answer: God is more powerful and wiser than we are, therefore he deals with us according to his pleasure.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

420. “Analysis and synthesis are both as necessary to the thinking spirit as inspiration and expiration to the organism.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

421. “Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do; and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

422. “Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

423. “The dignity of art probably appears most eminently with music since it does not have any material that needs to be discounted. Music is all form and content and elevates and ennobles everything that it expresses.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

424. “Wie es auch sei das Leben, es ist gut.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

425. “A good man, through obscurest aspirations Has still an instinct of the one true way.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

426. “My poor head is in such a whirl, my mind is all in bits.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

427. “Give me those days with heart in riot, The depths of bliss that touched on pain, The force of hate, and love’s disquiet- Ah, give me back my youth again!”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

428. “There are situations in which hope and fear run together, in which they mutually destroy one another and lose themselves in dull indifference.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

429. “The Bible grows more beautiful, as we grow in our understanding of it.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

430. “Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it; and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

431. “Music is so elevated that it is beyond the reach of intellect and there flows from it an influence which is all-potent, and which noone can explain.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

432. “The Beginning and end of all literary activity is the reproduction of the world that surrounds me by means of the world that is in me, all things being grasped, related, recreated, molded, and reconstructed in a personal form and original manner.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

433. “To have a positive religion is not necessary. To be in harmony with yourself and the universe is what counts, and this is possible without positive and specific formulation in words.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

434. “The hero draws inspiration from the virtue of his ancestors.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

435. “The greatest act of faith takes place when a man finally decides that he is not God.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

436. “If the mass of people hesitate to act, strike with swiftly and with boldness, the brave heart that understands and seizes opportunity can everything.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

437. “If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

438. “Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

439. “If there is confusion in your head and in your heart, what more do you want! A man who no longer loves and no longer errs should have himself buried straight away.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

440. “To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

441. “These auspicious aspects, which the astrologers subsequently interpreted for me, may have been the causes of my preservation.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

442. “A genuine work of art usually displeases at first sight, as it suggests a deficiency in the spectator.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

443. “It is working within limits that the craftsman reveals himself.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

444. “The eye doesn’t see any shapes, it sees only what is differentiated through light and dark or through colors.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

445. “Colour itself is a degree of darkness...”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

446. “Is it life, I ask, is it even prudence, To bore thyself and bore the students?”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

447. “Time flies, and what is past is done.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

448. “So long as you live and work, you will be misunderstood; to that you must resign yourself once and for all. Be silent!”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

449. “The assault of our enemies is not part of our life; it is only part of our experience; we throw it off and guard ourselves against it as against frost, storm, rain, hail, or any other of the external evils which may be expected to happen.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

450. “One criticizes the English for carrying their teapots wherever they go, even lugging them up Mount Etna. But doesn’t every nationhave its teapot, in which, even when traveling, it brews the dried bundles of herbs brought from home?”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe