Goethe Quotes

Don't judge anyone harshly until you yourself have been through his experiences

If you don't know foreign languages, you don't know anything about your own.

To measure up to all that is demanded of him, a man must overestimate his capacities

He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line.

A good person, striving dimly, Is well aware of the right path.

The older we get the more we must limit ourselves if we wish to be active.

Opponents fancy they refute us when they repeat their own opinion and pay no attention to ours.

Change amuses the mind, but rarely profits.

Thank God when He lays a burden on thee, and thank Him when He takes it off.

The miller believes that all the wheat grows so that his mill keeps running.

Nature has neither core nor skin: she’s both at once outside and in.

Before you can do something, you must first be something.

We blame equally him who is too proud to put a proper value on his own merit and him who prizes too highly his spurious worth.

Shakespeare is a great psychologist, and whatever can be known of the heart of man may be found in his plays.

The real scholar learns how to evolve the unknown from the known, and draws near the master.

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

Viewed from the summit of reason, all life looks like a malignant disease and the world like a madhouse.

People may live as much retired from the world as they please; but sooner or later, before they are aware, they will find themselves debtor or creditor to somebody.

Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiss nichts von seiner eigenen.He who is ignorant of foreign languages, knows not his own.

Were the eye not of the sun, How could we behold the light? If God's might and ours were not as one, How could His work enchant our sight?

Sameness leaves us in peace but it is contradiction that makes us productive.

I hate all bungling as I do sin, but particularly bungling in politics, which leads to the misery and ruin of many thousands and millions of people.

An absent friend gives us friendly company when we are well assured of his happiness.

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

Misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less frequent.

When you praise someone you call yourself his equal.

It is the fortunate who should extol fortune. [Ger., Das Gluck erhebe billig der Begluckte.]

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

To quit smoking, you must first want to quit, but then you must also do the quitting

If a man knows where to get good advice, it is as though he could supply it himself.

It is a great error to take oneself for more than one is, or for less than one is worth.

There is no patriotic art and no patriotic science.

People can only live with their equals, and not even with them; for in the long run they cannot tolerate that someone is their equal.

Our modern wars make many unhappy while they last and none happy when they are over.

Everyone only hears what he understands.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

In all times it is only individuals that have advanced science, not the age.

One is led astray alike by sympathy and coldness, by praise and by blame

The history of knowledge is a great fugue in which the voices of the nations one after the other emerge.

One glance, one word from you gives more pleasure than all the wisdom of this world.

All theory, my friend, is grey, But green is life's glad golden tree.

As long as you don't practice it, this dying and becoming, You are only a dreary guest on this dark earth.

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.

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

The light is there, and colors surround us. However, if there were no light nor colors in our own eye, we wouldn't perceive such things outside of us.

The happiest man is the one who finds happiness at home.

It is working within limits that the craftsman reveals himself.

Talents are nurtured best in solitude, But character on life's tempestuous seas!

The flowers of life are but illusions. How many fade away and leave no trace.

Mastery is often taken for egotism.