Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Alles Gescheite ist schon gedacht worden. Man muss nur versuchen, es noch einmal zu denken.

My son, whoever wishes to keep a secret, must hide from us that he possesses one. Self complaisance over the concealed destroys its concealment.

The folly! Every man in turn would still
His own peculiar notions magnify!
If Islam mean submission to God’s will,
May we all live in Islam, and all die.

Of old the sacred Koran did they cite,
They named the verse and chapter ever blest,
And each good Mussulman, as was but right,
Reverenced, and felt his conscience was at rest.
The modern Dervish nothing better knows,
But prates of old and new with endless zest;
Each day our most admired disorder grows.
O sacred Koran! O eternal rest!

Those who cannot draw conclusions From three thousand years of learning Stay naïve in dark confusions Day to day live undiscerning.

Wer nicht von dreitausend Jahren Sich weiß Rechenschaft zu geben, Bleib im Dunkeln unerfahren, Mag von Tag zu Tage leben.

A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows on rows of natural objects, classified with name and form.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Niemand ist mehr Sklave, als der sich für frei hält, ohne es zu sein.

There is no outward mark of politeness that does not have a profound moral reason. The right education would be that which taught the outward mark and the moral reason together.

Es gibt kein äußeres Zeichen der Höflichkeit, das nicht einen tiefen sittlichen Grund hätte. Die rechte Erziehung wäre, welche dieses Zeichen und den Grund zugleich überlieferte.

No one would talk much in society, if he knew how often he misunderstands others.

Let us live in as small a circle as we will, we are either debtors or creditors before we have had time to look round.

The architect hands over to the rich man with the keys to his palace all the ease and comfort to be found in it without being able to enjoy any of it himself. Must the artist not in this way gradually become alienated from his art, since his work, like a child that has been provided for and left home, can no longer have any effect upon its father? And how beneficial it must have been for art when it was intended to be concerned almost exclusively with what was public property, and belonged to everybody and therefore also to the artist!

Dem Reichen übergibt der Baumeister mit dem Schlüssel des Palastes alle Bequemlichkeit und Behäbigkeit, ohne irgend etwas davon mitzugenießen. Muß sich nicht allgemach auf diese Weise die Kunst von dem Künstler entfernen, wenn das Werk wie ein ausgestattetes Kind nicht mehr auf den Vater zurückwirkt? Und wie sehr mußte die Kunst sich selbst befördern, als sie fast allein mit dem öffentlichen, mit dem, was allen und also auch dem Künstler gehörte, sich zu beschäftigen bestimmt war!