Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

How can we learn self-knowledge? Never by taking thought but rather by action. Try to do your duty and you'll soon discover what you're like.

How can one learn to know oneself? Never by introspection, rather by action.

How can we know ourselves? Never by reflection, but only through action. Begin at once to do your duty and immediately you will know what is inside you.

To know nothing about yourself is to live. To know yourself badly is to think.

I've spent my life cultivating knowledge of myself. But the more I know myself, the more utterly mysterious I become.

To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom.

A man may perform astonishing feats and comprehend a vast amount of knowledge, and yet have no understanding of himself. But suffering directs a man to look within. If it succeeds, then there, within him, is the beginning of his learning.

We never completely comprehend ourselves, but we can do far more than comprehend.

Do the things you know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know.

We have to have a very clear understanding of ourselves.

As the years go by, you get to know yourself better and learn what works for you.

We can't see ourselves very clearly. This I learned as a songwriter. I'm forever trying to figure out what my own truth is.

The exploration of oneself is usually also an exploration of the world at large, of other writers, a process of comparison with oneself with others, discoveries of kinships, gradual illumination of one's own potentialities.

All your life you compare and contrast, explore and search. But knowing yourself well is, well, elusive.

I think the better you know yourself as a person, the better an actor you can be.

The knowledge of self is the most important thing, because how are you going to know God if you don't know yourself? How are you going to know anything if you don't know yourself?

The self-explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else.

For it is easy to criticize and break down the spirit of others, but to know yourself takes a lifetime.

To understand oneself requires patience, tolerant awareness; the self is a book of many volumes which you cannot read in a day, but when once you begin to read, you must read every word, every sentence, every paragraph for in them are the intimations of the whole. The beginning of it is the ending of it. If you know how to read, supreme wisdom is to be found.

Even with limited intelligence, knowing oneself is not as difficult as some say, but to act according to what one has realized about oneself in real life is as difficult as practicing anything else, compared to theory.

The more you understand yourself, the more you will understand the world.

The world will find out that part of your character which concerns it: that which especially concerns yourself, it will leave for you to discover.

When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.

If I do not understand myself, the whole complexity of myself, I have no basis for thinking.

I believe in the importance of seeking self-knowledge. The more I know myself, the more I feel empowered.