Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes on Happiness
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, scientist, and the towering figure of German Classicism. This page collects quotes attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on the topic of happiness, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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“He alone is great and happy who fills his own station of independence, and has neither to command nor to obey. [ 1 ]”
So gewiß ist der allein glücklich und groß, der weder zu herrschen noch zu gehorchen braucht, um etwas zu sein! -
“Alternative translation: So certain is it that he alone is great and happy, who requires neither to command nor to obey, in order to secure his being of some importance in the world. [ 2 ] Götz von Berlichingen , Act I (1773), p. 39”
So gewiß ist der allein glücklich und groß, der weder zu herrschen noch zu gehorchen braucht, um etwas zu sein! -
“I hold to faith in the divine love — which, so many years ago for a brief moment in a little corner of the earth, walked about as a man bearing the name of Jesus Christ — as the foundation on which alone my happiness rests.”
(1773), translated by Albert Schweizer in Goethe: Five Studies (1961), Beacon Press, p. 53 -
“A thinking man's greatest happiness is to have fathomed what can be fathomed and to revere in silence what cannot be fathomed.”
Maxims and Reflections(1833) | Maxim 1207, trans. Stopp ( p153 ) Variant translation: The greatest happiness for the thinking man is to have fathomed the fathomable, and to quietly revere the unfathomable.