Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann WolfgangGoethetə/; German: ; 28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings by him exist...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth28 August 1749
CountryGermany
How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to.
I wish the stage were as narrow as the wire of a tighrope dancer so that no incompetent would dare step upon it.
When translating one must proceed up to the intranslatable; only then one becomes aware of the foreign nation and the foreign tongue.
What we agree with leaves us inactive, but contradiction makes us productive.
No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.
The greatest evil that can befall man is that he should come to think ill of himself.
Old age is never honored among us, but only indulged, as childhood is; and old men lose one of the most precious rights of man,--that of being judged by their peers.
It is not enough to have knowledge; one must apply it. It is not enough to have wishes; one must also accomplish it.
I have possessed that heart, that noble soul, in whose presence I seemed to be more than I really was, because I was all that I could be.
To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods.
Words are good, but there is something better. The best is not to be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the chief matter. Action can only be understood and represented by the spirit.
One alone does not help, but rather he who unites with many at the right moment.
He who does not know foreign languages does not know anything about his own.
The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.