Painted portrait of Goethe with grey hair, in a dark coat and white cravat, against a verdigris ground

Portraits · Poets · II of XIV

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

1749–1832 · Poet and novelist

It is not enough to know, we must also apply; it is not enough to will, we must also do.
Es ist nicht genug zu wissen, man muß auch anwenden; es ist nicht genug zu wollen, man muß auch tun.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · Wilhelm Meister's Travels, 1829

Read it in the source →

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe set this among the maxims he added to Wilhelm Meister's Travels, the novel he finished in 1829, three years before his death. Knowledge and good intentions, it says, count for nothing until they are put to work.

Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (1829), 'Betrachtungen im Sinne der Wanderer'; Maxims and Reflections no. 324. The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe, tr. T. Bailey Saunders (London: Macmillan, 1893), p. 130.

The originals

Oil portrait of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in old age, in a dark coat and white cravat — **The likeness**PAINTED BY JOSEPH KARL STIELER · 1828Our portrait is painted after it.Public domain (painted from life; painter died 1858; Commons: PD-Art, PD-old-100-expired).

An open notebook filled with handwriting, photographed on a black ground — **Ephemerides · his notebook**The notebook of reading notes he kept as a student in Strasbourg, around 1770–71.Ephemerides, autograph notebook, c. 1770–71. Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.