Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Man Quotations

We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright.

But what is your duty? What the day demands. [Ger., Was aber ist deine Pflicht? Die Forderung des Tages.]

Duty is the demand of the hour.

The man who acts never has any conscience; no one has any conscience but the man who thinks

We don't get to know people when they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are like.

Poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere, and at all times, in hundreds and hundreds of men.

A noble man is led by woman's gentle words.

Could we perfect human nature, we might also expect a perfect state of things.

One must be something to be able to do something.

The artist who is not also a craftsman is no good; but, alas, most of our artists are nothing else.

If each one does their duty as an individual and if each one works in their own proper vocation, it will be right with the whole.

True works of art are a manifestation of the higher laws of nature.

A good man, through obscurest aspirations Has still an instinct of the one true way.

One cannot always be a hero, but one can always be a man.

I always seek the good that is in people and leave the bad to Him who made mankind and knows how to round off the corners.

Where there are no women there are no good manners

It is only in misery that we recognize the hand of God leading good men to good.

Human life-everybody lives it, but only to a few is it known.

The man of understanding finds everything laughable.

Happy contractedness of youth, nay, of mankind in general, that they think neither of the high nor the deep, of the true nor the false, but only of what is suited to their own conceptions.

Humans fear reason, but they ought to fear stupidity- for reason can be hard, but stupidity can be fatal.

We should know mankind better if we were not so anxious to resemble one another.

One is never satisfied with a portrait of persons whom one knows. That is why I have always pitied portraitists. One demands so seldom of others the impossible, but demands just that of the portraitists.

What is part of you, you cannot get rid of, even if you were to throw it away.

If you are to accomplish all that one demands of you, you must overestimate your own worth.

Association with women is the basis of good manners.

A noble man is led far by woman's gentle words. [Ger., Ein edler Mann wird durch ein gutes Wort Der Frauen weit gefuhrt.]

The shudder of awe is humanity's highest faculty, Even though this world is forever altering its values.

Behavior is a mirror in which every one shows his image. [Ger., Das Betragen ist ein Spiegel in welchem jeder sein Bild zeigt.]

Manners form the great charm of women.

To the man of thought almost nothing is really ridiculous.

The society of women is the element of good manners.

When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.

Human beings, by change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.

If any man wishes to write a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts.

If a man makes continuous efforts, we can save him.

He alone is great and happy who requires neither to command nor to obey in order to secure his being of some importance in this world

The man who is born with a talent which he was meant to use finds his greatest happiness in using it.

Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are.

The human mind will not be confined to any limits.

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

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

The work of art may have a moral effect, but to demand moral purpose from the artist is to make him ruin his work.

Whatever necessity lays upon thee, endure; whatever she commands, do.

The right man is the one who seizes the moment.

A man who cannot command himself will always be a slave.

It is in human nature to relax, when not compelled by personal advantage or disadvantage.

Mankind? That is an abstraction. There have always been and always will be only individuals.

Talent develops in tranquillity, character in the full current of human life.

Genius is formed in quiet, character in the stream of human life

Genius develops in quiet places, character out in the full current of human life

The man who masters himself is delivered from the force that binds all creatures.

The history of mankind is his character.

What then is your duty? What the day demands.

Truth is contrary to our nature, not so error, and this for a very simple reason: truth demands that we should recognize ourselves as limited, error flatters us that, in one way or another, we are unlimited.

The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.

It is working within limits that the craftsman reveals himself.

Well-mannered children could be conceived if the parents were well-mannered.

Superstition is a part of the very being of humanity; and when we fancy that we are banishing it altogether, it takes refuge in the strangest nooks and corners, and then suddenly comes forth again, as soon as it believes itself at all safe.

What a day it is when we must envy the men in their graves.

Man is not born to solve the problems of the universe, but to find out what he has to do... within the limits of his comprehension.

A man that all the world hates, there must be something about him.

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man almost nothing

I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wishes. The greater part of all mischief in the world arises from the fact that men do not sufficiently understand their own aims. They have undertaken to build a tower, and spend no more labor on the foundation than would be necessary to erect a hut.

A wife is a gift bestowed upon man to reconcile him to the loss of paradise

He who seizes the right moment, is the right man

Treat a man as if he were what he ought to be and you help him become what he is capable of being

Treat a man as he is, he will remain so. Treat a man the way he can be and ought to be, and he will become as he can be and should be.

A collection of anecdotes and maxims is the greatest of treasures for the man of the world, for he knows how to intersperse conversation with the former in fit places, and to recollect the latter on proper occasions

The highest happiness of man is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.

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

The right man is the one that seizes the moment.

There would be far less suffering in the world if human beings-God knows why they are made like this-did not use their imaginations so busily in recalling the memories of past misfortunes, instead of trying to bear an indifferent present.

Es gibt kein Vergangenes, daß man zurücksehnen dürfte, es gibt nur ein ewig Neues, daß sich aus den erweiterten Elementen des Vergangenen gestaltet; und die echte Sehnsucht muß stets produktiv sein, ein neues Besseres zu schaffen.

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