Thinking Quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Thought expands, but paralyzes; action animates, but narrows.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What matters in art is not thinking but making.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I make presents to the mother but think of the daughter.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To act is easy; to think is hard.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

No prudent antagonist thinks light of his adversaries.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One usually thinks people to be more dangerous than they are.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Energy will do anything that can be done in this world.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What you can do, or think you can, begin it.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Normally, people believe that, if they hear just words, that these words must lead to some thought.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Who can think wise or stupid things at all that were not thought already in the past.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One that does not think to highly of himself is more than he thinks.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What must the English and French think of the language of our philosophers when we Germans do not understand it ourselves?

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If man thinks about his physical or moral state he usually discovers that he is ill.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Analysis and synthesis are both as necessary to the thinking spirit as inspiration and expiration to the organism.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Secrecy has many advantages, for when you tell someone the purpose of any object right away, they often think there is nothing…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Happy contractedness of youth, nay, of mankind in general, that they think neither of the high nor the deep, of the true…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nothing is more odious than the majority, for it consists of a few powerful leaders, a certain number of accommodating scoundrels and…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Our destiny often looks like a fruit-tree in winter. Who would think from its pitiable aspect that those rigid boughs, those rough…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

And what does really matter? That is easy: thinking and doing, doing and thinking--and these are the sum of all wisdom. .…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There is a great difference, whether the poet seeks the particular for the sake of the general or sees the general in…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The worst is that the very hardest thinking will not bring thoughts. They must come like good children of God and cry,…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

True observers of nature, although they may think differently, will still agree that everything that is, everything that is observable as a…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We cannot too soon convince ourselves how easily we may be dispensed with in the world. What important personages we imagine ourselves…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Lose the day loitering, 'twill be the same story To-morrow, and the next more dilatory, For indecision brings its own delays, And…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Don't feel guilty if you don't immediately love your stepchildren as you do your own, or as much as you think you…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All ages have said and repeated that one should strive to know one's self. This is a strange demand which no one…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In art it's not the thinking that does the job, but making.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It doesn't behoove elderly persons to follow fashion in their thinking nor in the way they dress.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The greatest joy of a thinking man is to have searched the explored and to quietly revere the unexplored.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Because everyone uses language to talk, everyone thinks he can talk about language.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There is nothing worth thinking but it has been thought before; we must only try to think it again.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Do people conform to the instructions of us old ones? Each thinks he must know best about himself, and thus many are…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The greatest piece of folly is that every man thinks himself compelled to hand down what people think they have known.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Men are much more apt to agree in what they do than in what they think.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe