Johann Wolfgang von Goethe People Quotations

The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.

The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.

Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.

A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.

I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.

We don't get to know people when they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are like.

When two people are really happy about one another, one can generally assume that they are mistaken.

Only people unable to produce anything themselves feel there is nothing there.

People may live as much retired from the world as they like, but sooner or later they find themselves debtor or creditor to some one.

People of a vertain rank will always keep a cool distance from common people, as if they were afraid to lose their dignity by too much familiarity.

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being

Why do we hear such everlasting negative talk! People all imagine they'll be giving something away if they recognize the least bit of merit.

What chance gathers she easily scatters. A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.

If you accept people for what they are, they will become worse. Treat them like they should be, and they will become better.

Whatever we may say against collections, which present authors in a disjointed form, they nevertheless bring about many excellent results. We are not always so composed, so full of wisdom, that we are able to take in at once the whole scope of a work according to its merits. Do we not mark in a book passages which seem to have a direct reference to ourselves? Young people especially, who have failed in acquiring a complete cultivation of mind, are roused in a praiseworthy way by brilliant passages...

People always fancy that we must become old to become wise; but, in truth, as years advance, it is hard to keep ourselves as wise as we were.

People will allow their faults to be shown them; they will let themselves be punished for them; they will patiently endure many things because of them; they only become impatient when they have to lay them aside.

Do people conform to the instructions of us old ones? Each thinks he must know best about himself, and thus many are lost entirely.

When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.

The destiny of any nation at any given time depends on the opinion of its young people, those under twenty-five.

There are people who make no mistakes because they never wish to do anything worth doing.

People may live as much retired from the world as they please; but sooner or later, before they are aware, they will find themselves debtor or creditor to somebody.

What makes people happy is activity; changing evil itself into good by power, working in a God like manner.

For many people, one of the most frustrating aspects of life is not being able to understand other people's behavior.

If the whole world I once could see On free soil stand, with the people free Then to the moment might I say, Linger awhile. . .so fair thou art.

When you are in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude. We don't get to know people when they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are like.

If you live criticizing people, you won't have time to love them.

If you lay duties upon people and give them no rights, you must pay them well.

There is nothing new on earth / For a person who lives long and experiences much. / In my years of youthful wandering / I have seen crystallized people.

What do people mean when they talk about unhappiness? It is not so much unhappiness as impatience that from time to time possesses men, and then they choose to call themselves miserable.

As for solitude, I cannot understand how certain people seek to lay claim to intellectual stature, nobility of soul and strength of character, yet have not the slightest feeling for seclusion; for solitude, I maintain, when joined with a quiet contemplation of nature, a serene and conscious faith in creation and the Creator, and a few vexations from outside is the only school for a mind of lofty endowment.

All ages have said and repeated that one should strive to know one's self. This is a strange demand which no one up to now has measured up to and, strictly considered, no one should. With all their study and effort, people are directed to what is outside, to the world about them, and they are kept busy coming to know this and to master it to the extent that their purposes require. . . . How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to. And what is your duty? Whatever the day calls for.

If you inquire what people are like here, I must answer, "The same as everywhere."

I always seek the good that is in people and leave the bad to Him who made mankind and knows how to round off the corners.

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.

A great revolution is never the fault of the people, but of the government.

When two people are really happy about one another one can generally assume they are mistaken.

The people rate strength before everything.

People do not mind their faults being spread out before them, but they become impatient if called on to give them up.

Clever people are always the best conversations lexicon.

The dear good people don't know how long it takes to learn to read. I've been at it eighty years, and can't say yet that I've reached the goal.

Since you know me and my destiny only too well, you probably also know what attracts me to all unfortunate people.

They should be ashamed of themselves, all these sober people!

Is it not enough that we cannot make one another happy, must we also rob one another of the pleasures that any heart may permit itself now and then? And name me a person who in a bad mood will be decent enough to hide it, to bear it alone, without destroying the joy around him. Is it not rather an inner dissatisfaction with our own unworthiness, a dislike of ourselves that is always associated with envy aggravated by foolish conceit? We see people happy and not made happy by us, and that is unbearable.

A lot of people do not care about your money until nearly penniless. They also do so with time

It is bad governments, not bad people, who cause revolutions.

There are people who pay attention to the weaknesses of their friends; that is to no avail. I have always closely watched and profited from the strengths of my adversaries.

No two people see the world exactly alike, and different temperaments will often apply the same principle, recognized by both, differently. Even one and the same person won't always maintain the same views and judgments: earlier convictions must give way to later ones.

It is a maxim of wise government to treat people not as they should be but as they actually are.

Very few people love others for what they are; rather, they love what they lend them, their own selves, their own idea of them.

For usually people resist as long as they can to dismiss the fool they harbor in their bosom, they resist to confess a major mistake or to admit a truth that makes them despair.

If we take people only as they are, then we make them worse; if we treat them as if they were what they should be, then we bring them to where they can be brought.

One usually thinks people to be more dangerous than they are.

One spares old people just as one spares children.

In politics people throw themselves, as on a sickbed, from one side to the other in the belief they will lie more comfortably.

What right those who govern have to govern they don't question, they just govern. Whether the people have a right to depose them that doesn't concern them. All they are concerned with is that the people will not be tempted to depose them.

I hate all bungling as I do sin, but particularly bungling in politics, which leads to the misery and ruin of many thousands and millions of people.

Oblivion is full of people who allow the opinions of others to overrule their belief in themselves.

Collectors are happy people.

People are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake what they see others do, whether they have an aptitude for it or not.

Energy is the basis of everything. Every Jew, no matter how insignificant, is engaged in some decisive and immediate pursuit of a goal... It is the most perpetual people of the earth...

People have a peculiar pleasure in making converts, that is, in causing others to enjoy what they enjoy, thus finding their own likeness represented and reflected back to them.

Treat people the way they are and they will stay that way. Treat people the way they can become and they will become that way.

People of uncommon abilities generally fall into eccentricities when their sphere of life is not adequate to their abilities.