Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was the greatest icon in the German literary and cultural pantheon. This master of world literature was a polymath: not only was he a poet, novelist, playwright, historian, and natural philosopher, but he also held several government positions at Weimar and made scientific discoveries.

Goethe gained early fame with his first novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774; The Sorrows of Young Werther.) Written as a collection of letters by the protagonist, this sentimental epistolary novel tells the story of a young man who falls in love with a woman engaged to another man.

Goethe also wrote hundreds of essays, many volumes of lyric poetry, and an in-depth dissertation on the physics of light and color contrasting his theories against Newton’s.

Goethe is most famous for his magnum opus Faust, published as Faust, Part One (1808) and Faust, Part Two (1832.) Goethe started writing Faust at age 23 and finished it a few months before his death six decades later. This two-part poetic drama is based on a classic German legend, which in turn is based on an actual magician who lived in northern Germany in the fifteenth century.

Goethe’s Faust tells the story of a brilliant scholar named Heinrich Faust, who is very successful yet unhappy in life. He forsakes God, makes a dangerous deal with the Devil, and exchanges his soul for unlimited power, knowledge, and worldly pleasures. Celebrated for its themes of damnation, witchcraft, sexual betrayal, and freeform philosophic contemplation, Faust is considered one of the greatest works of German literature.

Appreciation for Goethe and his works throughout Europe and America added much to the dissemination of German culture worldwide, with significant effects on scholarship, education, and philosophy, as well as literature throughout the 19th century.

In addition to his literary work, Goethe was also a geologist, botanist, anatomist, physicist, and science historian. His most notable scientific contributions include his theory of plant metamorphosis and his theory of colors.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature goes her own way and all that to us seems an exception is really according to order.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Nature

The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Christianity, Religion

It never occurs to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Luck, Fools, Merit, Foolishness

Everything that frees our spirit without giving us control of ourselves is ruinous.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We must not take the faults of our youth with us into old age, for age brings along its own defects.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Time, Age

It is not enough to know, we must also apply; it is not enough to will, we must also do.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take firm root in our personal experience.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Thinking, Think, Persona, Wise, Thoughts, Thought

Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Nature, Life

The decline of literature indicates the decline of the nation. The two keep pace in their downward tendency.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Literature, Books, Nation

Great possessions and great want of them are both strong temptations.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Temptation

To make couples love each other you only need to part them.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Devote each day to the object then in time, and every evening will find something done.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Present

Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Deception, Deception/Lying

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Talent

What you can do, or think you can, begin it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To measure up to all that is demanded of him, a man must overestimate his capacities.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Ignorance

Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Age, Aging

There is repetition everywhere, and nothing is found only once in the world.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Simplicity

We must not hope to be mowers And to gather the ripe gold ears, Unless we have first been sowers, And watered the furrows with tears. It is not just as we take it, This mystical world of ours: Life’s field will yield as we make it, A harvest of thorns or of flowers.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Life

I make presents to the mother but think of the daughter.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Men

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Thinking, Humankind, Action

Reason can never be popular. Passions and feelings may become popular, but reason will always remain the sole property of a few eminent individuals.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Reason

I don’t know a greater advantage, than to appreciate the worth of an enemy.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: War

I believe in God and in nature and in the triumph of good over evil.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Nature

Children, love one another, and if that is not possible-at least try to put up with one another.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Children

Man can only endure a certain degree of unhappiness; what is beyond that either annihilates him or passes by him and leaves him apathetic
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Men, Unhappiness

Girls we love for what they are; young men for what they promise to be.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Youth

Mathematicians are like Frenchman: whatever you say to them they translate Into their own language, and forthwith it is something entirely different.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Science, Mathematics

Nothing is to be rated higher than the value of the day.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Topics: Value, Time Management, Time

There is nothing more frightening than a bustling ignorance.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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