German poet, playwright, novelist, statesman, and scientist, central figure of Weimar Classicism (1749-1832)
25 quotes in the MindQuotes library.
Reading guide
Goethe is vast; starting with a narrative text helps you enter his language before approaching his more philosophical works.
Our starting point
An intense, relatively short novelistic entry point
This novel immediately shows the sensibility and Romantic force that made Goethe a central figure in European literature.
Discovering his major work
A more ambitious read; choose an edition with a good introduction to make the most of its references and shifts in register.
Merchant links help compare editions. Recommendations are editorially independent.
“Ask for the business...always! Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.”Create visual
“Never let a day pass that will make you say, "I will do better tomorrow". It is not enough to have knowledge; one must apply it. It is not enough to have wishes; one must also accomplish it.”Create visual
“For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him, he must regard himself as greater than he is.”Create visual
“What you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”Create visual
“A life without love, without the presence of the beloved, is nothing but a mere magic-lantern show. We draw out slide after slide, swiftly tiring of each, and pushing it back to make haste for the next.”Create visual
“If I love you, what business is it of yours?”Create visual
“That is the true season of love, when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will love in the same way as us.”Create visual
“We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.”Create visual
“A person is never happy till their vague strivings has itself marked out its proper limitations.”Create visual
“Each has his own happiness in his hands, as the artist handles the rude clay he seeks to reshape it into a figure; yet it is the same with this art as with all others: only the capacity for it is innate; the art itself must be learned and painstakingly practiced.”Create visual
“Nine keys to contentment Health enough to make work a pleasure. Wealth enough to support your needs. Strength enough to battle with difficulties and overcome them. Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them. Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished. Charity enough to see some good in your neighbors. Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others. Faith enough to make real things of God. Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.”Create visual
“The highest happiness of man . . . is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.”Create visual
“What makes people happy is activity; changing evil itself into good by power, working in a God like manner.”Create visual
“Belief is not the beginning of knowledge, it is the end.”Create visual
“It is not enough to have knowledge, one must also apply it. It is not enough to have wishes, one must also accomplish.”Create visual
“No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.”Create visual
“Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.”Create visual
“What is not fully understood is not possessed.”Create visual
“Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded.”Create visual
“Character develops itself in the stream of life.”Create visual
“Men show their character in nothing more clearly than by what they think laughable.”Create visual
“Talent develops in tranquility, character in the full current of human life.”Create visual
“Talent is nurtured in solitude; character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.”Create visual
“The right man is the one who seizes the moment.”Create visual