Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

By doubting we come to questioning, and by questioning we perceive the truth.

Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.

Inquiry is fatal to certainty.

Between truth and the search for it, I choose the second.

The curse of a journalist is that he always has more questions than answers.

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.

Ignorance never settles a question.

I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.

A desire for truth is by no means a need for certitude and it would be unwise to confuse one with the other.

The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.

Do you really know what's going on And if you don't... find out

Doubt is really a groping ignorance.

Every man is fully satisfied that there is such a thing as truth, or he would not ask any question.

Seeing is believing and believing is knowing and knowing beats unknowing and the unknown.

Doubt is the necessary tool of knowledge.

Doubt is the first step towards knowledge, not faith.

Our understanding of the world around us is constantly being redefined and expanded, and so therefore, it is wiser to be passionate about seeking for truth than knowing it.

I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.

The job is to ask questions-it always was-and to ask them as inexorably as I can. And to face the absence of precise answers with a certain humility.

By doubting we are led to question, by questioning we arrive at the truth.

Argument is conclusive, but it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment.

Doubt grows with knowledge.

The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.

People don't want to be plagued by not knowing-they want answers.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.