Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Nature understands no jesting. She is always true, always serious, always severe. She is always right, and the errors are always those of man.

The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.

There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.

Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.

Be truthful, nature only sides with truth.

It is astonishing what force, purity, and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods.

Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious unity and integrity is wisdom, the mother of us all, "natura naturans." There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fountain of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness, and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being.

By the word simplicity, is not always meant folly or ignorance; but often, pure and upright Nature, free from artifice, craft or deceitful ornament.

You are the Truth from foot to brow. Now, what else would you like to know?

Nature is inexorable. If men do not follow the truth they cannot live.

For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!' I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered. I liked white better,' I said. White!' he sneered. 'It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.' In which case it is no longer white,' said I. 'And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.' - Gandalf

Truth and fidelity are the pillars of the temple of the world; when these are broken, the fabric falls, and crushes all to pieces.

Never does nature say one thing and Wisdom another. Variant: Wisdom and Nature! are they not the same? Variant: Nature and Wisdon always speak alike.

He that is conceited of his Wisdom, is readier to impose Error, than to receive Truth.

Titles are marks of honest men, and wise; The fool or knave that wears a title lies.

When happiness points in one direction while wisdom, truth, integrity, and common sense point in another, that's when really smart people start doing really stupid things.

I would rather stand alone in the light of truth than in the crowd filled with error.

Truth never hurts the teller.

Man's ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy-that he live in accordance with his own nature.

Fools lie, clever men stick to the truth.

Nature's law says that the strong must prevent the weak from living, but only in a newspaper article or textbook can this be packaged into a comprehensible thought. In the soup of everyday life, in the mixture of minutia from which human relations are woven, it is not a law. It is a logical incongruity when both strong and weak fall victim to their mutual relations, unconsciously subservient to some unknown guiding power that stands outside of life, irrelevant to man.

We frequently fall into error and folly, not because the true principles of action are not known, but because for a time they are not remembered; he may, therefore, justly be numbered among the benefactors of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences that may early be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to occur habitually to the mind.

The gift of truth excels all other gifts.

Christ is the most perfect image of God, into which we are so renewed as to bear the image of God, in knowledge, purity, righteousness, and true holiness.