Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

18 quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on investing, entrepreneurship and motivation.

On investing

• If I know how you spend your time, then I know what might become of you.

• The world admires wealth and velocity-these are the things for which everyone strives. Railroads, the post, steamboats, and all possible modes of communication are the means by which the world overeducates itself and freezes itself in mediocrity.

On entrepreneurship

• If I love you, what business is it of yours?

• Great talent finds happiness in execution.

• A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.

On motivation

• We can always redeem the man who aspires and strives.

• The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.

• Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome.

• Cease endlessly striving for what you would like to do and learn to love what must be done.

• As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

• In all things it is better to hope than to despair.

• Everything is hard before it is easy.

• Let us live while we are alive!

• Man errs as long as he struggles.

• Life's objective is life itself.

• A clever man commits no minor blunders.

• A useless life is an early death.

• Man must strive and in striving he must err.