Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quotes

“Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“A clever man commits no minor blunders.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“We can't form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Personality is everything in art and poetry.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Devote each day to the object then in time and every evening will find something done.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“A useless life is an early death.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“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

“He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“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

“We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“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

“In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Great thoughts and a pure heart, that is what we should ask from God.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe