Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes about Nature

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Inspirational, Friendship, Nature

"'Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre' ('Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship')". Book by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1796.

People should talk less and draw more. Personally, I would like to renounce speech altogether and, like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say visually.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature, People, Listening

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature, Science, Connections

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.162, Ravenio Books

Nature is the living, visible garment of God.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature, Garments, Visible

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1882). “Faust, the First Part: The Text, with English Notes, Essays, and Verse Translations by E. J. Turner ... and E. D. A. Morshead ...”

By nature we have no defect that could not become a strength, no strength that could not become a defect.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Strength, Nature, Defects

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1963). “Goethe's world view: presented in his reflections and maxims”

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Summer, Nature, Children

Whatever Nature undertakes, she can only accomplish it in a sequence. She never makes a leap.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature, Accomplish, Leap

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1966). “Conversations and encounters”

No man learns to know his inmost nature by introspection, for he rates himself sometimes too low, and often too high, by his own measurement. Man knows himself only by comparing himself with other men; it is life that touches his genuine worth.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Life, Nature, Men

Is not the core of nature in the heart of man?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature, Heart, Men

Nature is beneficent. I praise her and all her works. She is silent and wise. She is cunning, but for good ends. She has brought me here and will also lead me away. She may scold me, but she will not hate her work. I trust her.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Wise, Nature, Hate

Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature, Progress, Development

The older I get the more I trust in the law according to which the rose and the lily bloom.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature, Law, Rose

All is born of water; all is sustained by water.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature, Travel, Water

Nature! We live in her midst and know her not. She is incessantly speaking to us, but betrays not her secret. We constantly act upon her, and yet have no power over her. Variant: NATURE! We are surrounded and embraced by her: powerless to separate ourselves from her, and powerless to penetrate beyond her.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature, Secret, Midst

Nature does not suffer her veil to be taken from her, and what she does not choose to reveal to the spirit, thou wilt not wrest from her by levers and screws.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature, Taken, Science

Nature goes her own way, and all that to us seems an exception is really according to order.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature, Science, Order

"Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret".

Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Beauty, Nature, Reflection

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.238, Ravenio Books

The artist has a twofold relation to nature; he is at once her master and her slave.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature, Artist, Slave

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.242, Ravenio Books

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature, Men, Errors

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.346, Ravenio Books

Nature! We are enveloped and embraced by her, incapable of emerging from her and incapable of entering her more deeply. Unbidden and unwarned, she receives us into the circuits of her dance, drifting onward with us herself, until we grow tired and drop from her arms.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature, Tired, Entering

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1963). “Goethe's world view: presented in his reflections and maxims”

There is no trifling with nature; it is always true, grave, and severe; it is always in the light, and the faults and errors fall to our share. It defies incompetency, but reveals its secrets to the competent, the truthful, and the pure.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature, Fall, Errors