Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

How can one learn to know oneself? Never by introspection, rather by action.

How can we learn self-knowledge? Never by taking thought but rather by action. Try to do your duty and you'll soon discover what you're like.

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.

Self knowledge is best learned not by contemplation, but by action.

Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.

Do the things you know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know.

I think that no matter how old you get, you are always learning about yourself.

How can we know ourselves? Never by reflection, but only through action. Begin at once to do your duty and immediately you will know what is inside you.

In an active life is sown the seed of wisdom; but he who reflects not, never reaps; has no harvest from it, but carries the burden of age without the wages of experience; nor knows himself old, but from his infirmities, the parish register, and the contempt of mankind. And age, if it has not esteem, has nothing.

If I do not understand myself, the whole complexity of myself, I have no basis for thinking.

How many years must a man do nothing, before he can at all know what is to be done and how to do it!

Is a little experience too much to pay for learning to know oneself?

To know oneself is to study oneself in action, which is relationship.

Never lose sight of this important truth, that no one can be truly great until he has gained a knowledge of himself, a knowledge which can only be acquired by occasional retirement.

If you really want to know yourself, start by writing a book.

The doer alone learneth.

Writing is a really good first step toward that goal of knowing yourself.

Seriously I suspected I was a good actor, though I didn't know it during 'Monsoon Wedding.' Now I realize the more I learn, the less I know about acting... and life.

What is the good of experience if you do not reflect?

Everyone needs solitude, especially a person who is used to thinking about what she experiences. Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration, but isolation is not good in this respect. I am not writing poetry about isolation.

I've just tried to keep my eyes open, tried to read everything you can, and tried to see whether I see myself within it. If I do, then I can get excited about it.

Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience.

Know thyself.

Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.

You learn a lot about yourself just by writing it down.