Science Quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We see only what we know.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“We would rather admit our moral errors, mistakes and crimes than our scientific errors.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature goes on her way, and all that to us seems an exception is really according to order.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature goes her own way, and all that to us seems an exception is really according to order.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In all times it is only individuals that have advanced science, not the age.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Microscopes and telescopes really confuse our minds.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The arts are the salt of the earth; as salt relates to food, the arts relate to technology.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

He who has art and science also has religion, but those who do not have them better have religion.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

God could cause us considerable embarrassment by revealing all the secrets of nature to us: we should not know what to do…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature does not suffer her veil to be taken from her, and what she does not choose to reveal to the spirit,…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nothing is more consonant with Nature than that she puts into operation in the smallest detail that which she intends as a…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Whether one show one's self a man of genius in science or compose a song, the only point is, whether the thought,…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Science has been seriously retarded by the study of what is not worth knowing and of what is not knowable.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If you have science and art, You also have religion; But if you don't have them, You better have religion.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I had rather be Mercury, the smallest among seven [planets], revolving round the sun, than the first among five [moons] revolving round…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in even greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Someday someone will write a pathology of experimental physics and bring to light all those swindles which subvert our reason, beguile our…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It seems to me that every phenomenon, every fact, itself is the really interesting object. Whoever explains it, or connects it with…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

As for what I have done as a poet, I take no pride in whatever. Excellent poets have lived at the same…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It will be! the mass is working clearer! Conviction gathers, truer, nearer! The mystery which for Man in Nature lies We dare…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The works of Lavoisier and his associates operated upon many of us at that time like the Sun's rising after a night…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The artist may be well advised to keep his work to himself till it is completed, because no one can readily help…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Without my attempts in natural science, I should never have learned to know mankind such as it is. In nothing else can…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In all our academies we attempt far too much. ... In earlier times lectures were delivered upon chemistry and botany as branches…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Primal Plant is going be the strangest creature in the world, which Nature herself must envy me. With this model and…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

No one can take from us the joy of the first becoming aware of something, the so-called discovery. But if we also…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Normally, the sciences distance themselves from life and the return to it via a detour.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Science arose from poetry... when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We are pantheists as natural scientists, polytheists as poets, and monotheists as moral beings.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Not art and science only, but patience will be required for the work.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There is no patriotic art and no patriotic science.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Experiments are mediators between nature and idea.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The history of science is science itself; the history of the individual, the individual.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

He who possesses science and art, Possesses religion as well; He who possesses neither of these, Had better have religion.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There is no permanence in doubt; it incites the mind to closer inquiry and experiment, from which, if rightly managed, certainty proceeds,…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Everything in science depends on what one calls an aperçu, on becoming aware of what is at the bottom of the phenomena.…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe