A List of Famous Johann Wolfgang Goethe Quotes

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

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

Talents are best nurtured in solitude. Character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.

What chance gathers she easily scatters. A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.

One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

If I love you, what business is it of yours?

Rest not. Life is sweeping by; go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time.

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.

Trust yourself, then you will know how to live.

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.