If some people hadn't felt obliged to repeat what is untrue simply because they had at one point maintained it, they would have turned into quite different people.
Use itGS4: ego makes people defend past falsehoods—courage to admit error.
Quotes / Thinkers / Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Thinker · 28 quotes
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quotes for UPSC
28 sourced quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on character & virtue, education & knowledge, democracy & freedom, truth & wisdom, culture, art & literature, with a use case for each in GS4, Essay and interviews.
✓ Attributions checked against Wikiquote's sourced list
One must be something in order to do something.
— Johann Wolfgang von GoetheConversations with Eckermann (20 October 1828)
Use itLife/GS4: being precedes doing—build character before seeking achievement.
Behaviour is a mirror in which everyone shows his image.
— Johann Wolfgang von GoetheMaxim 39, trans. Stopp
Use itGS4: conduct reveals true character—behaviour as a mirror.
A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world's torrent.
— Johann Wolfgang von GoetheTorquato Tasso, Act I, sc. ii (1790)
Use itEssay/Interview: talent grows in solitude, character in life's struggles.
A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.
— Johann Wolfgang von GoetheTorquato Tasso, Act I, sc. i (1790)
Use itLife: good character attracts and retains good people.
Noble be man, Helpful and good! For that alone Sets hims apart From every other creature On earth.
— Johann Wolfgang von GoetheDas Göttliche (The Divine) (1783)
Use itGS4/Essay: nobility, helpfulness and goodness set humans apart.
Life teaches us to be less harsh with ourselves and with others.
Use itLife/GS4: experience teaches gentleness towards ourselves and others.
‘When we take people,’ thou wouldst say, ‘merely as they are, we make them worse; when we treat them as if they were what they should be, we improve them as far as they can be improved.’
Use itGS4: Pygmalion effect—treat people as they could be to bring out their best.
In limitations he first shows himself the master, And the law can only bring us freedom.
— Johann Wolfgang von GoetheWas Wir Bringen (1802)
Use itEssay/GS2: law and limits enable true freedom; mastery shows within constraints.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Use itEssay on freedom; illusion of freedom is the worst bondage—e.g. digital manipulation.
Of freedom and of life he only is deserving Who every day must conquer them anew.
Use itEssay on liberty; freedom must be earned and defended every day.
You ask which form of government is the best? Whichever teaches us to govern ourselves.
Use itGS2 on local self-government; best government teaches citizens to govern themselves.
Nothing is more frightful than to see ignorance in action.
Use itEssay/GS4: ignorance in action, especially in power, is most dangerous.
You really only know when you know little. Doubt grows with knowledge.
— Johann Wolfgang von GoetheMaxim 281, trans. Stopp
Use itEssay on knowledge; deeper learning breeds doubt and humility.
All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.
Use itEssay/Life: wisdom lies in rethinking old ideas afresh, not inventing new ones.
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.
Use itGS4 on value education; teach good manners along with their moral reasons.
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.
Use itEssay on rote learning; inspiring one good action beats memorising facts.
The artist may be well advised to keep his work to himself till it is completed, because no one can readily help him or advise him with it...but the scientist is wiser not to withhold a single finding or a single conjecture from publicity.
— Johann Wolfgang von GoetheEssay on Experimentation
Use itGS3 on open science; scientists should share findings publicly.
Investigate what is, and not what pleases.
Use itGS4: objective inquiry—investigate facts, not what pleases you.
Nothing is more damaging to a new truth than an old error.
— Johann Wolfgang von GoetheMaxim 715, trans. Stopp
Use itEssay on reform; entrenched misconceptions block new truths.
He who does not speak foreign languages knows nothing about his own.
Use itEssay on multilingualism or NEP three-language formula; learning others deepens one's own.
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
Use itLife: daily dose of music, poetry and art for balanced living.
The deed is everything, the glory nothing.
— Johann Wolfgang von GoetheAct IV, A High Mountain Range
Use itGS4: focus on the deed, not the glory—nishkama karma in public service.
Man errs as long as he strives.
Use itLife: mistakes are inevitable for anyone striving—keep going.
Very often when we have found ourselves forever separated from what we had intended to achieve, we have already, on our way, found something else worth desiring.
Use itLife/Interview: when a goal slips away, the journey often reveals new worthy aims.
A useless life is an early death.
Use itEssay on purpose; a life without usefulness is a living death.
Nothing should be treasured more highly than the value of the day.
Use itLife: treasure each day of preparation—make it count.
Everything that liberates our mind without at the same time imparting self-control is pernicious.
— Johann Wolfgang von GoetheMaxim 504, trans. Stopp
Use itGS4/Essay: freedom without self-control is harmful—e.g. social media liberty.