All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
The child, offered the mother's breast, Will not in the beginning grab it; But soon it clings to it with zest. And thus at wisdom's copious breasts You'll drink each day with greater zest.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the natural progression of learning and attachment, suggesting that wisdom is initially approached with hesitation but becomes deeply embraced over time.
Goethe's quote metaphorically compares the initial rejection of wisdom to a child's reluctance to take its mother's breast. It illustrates how, like a child that eventually clings to its mother's nourishment with eagerness, individuals may initially struggle with or resist wisdom but will ultimately come to appreciate and seek it out passionately as they grow and learn.
Themes
WisdomLearningGrowthUnderstandingKnowledge
In practice
Example use cases
During a keynote speech on education, you might quote this to emphasize the importance of nurturing a love for learning.
More from Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
All quotes →Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
I am amazed to see how deliberately I have entangled myself step by step. To have seen my position so clearly, and yet to have acted so like a child!
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
Seldom in the business and transactions of ordinary life, do we find the sympathy we want.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
Similar quotes
Worry is a way to pretend that you have knowledge or control over what you don't--and it surprises me, even in myself, how much we prefer ugly scenarios to the pure unknown.
Rebecca SolnitRead
Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
Power to translate is the test of having really understood one's own meaning.
C. S. LewisRead
Doctrine is nothing but the skin of truth set up and stuffed.
Henry Ward BeecherRead
Humility responds to God's will-to the fear of His judgments and to the needs of those around us. To the proud, the applause of the world rings in their ears; to the humble, the applause of heaven warms their hearts. Someone has said, "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man."
Ezra Taft BensonRead
Clap an extinguisher upon your irony if you are unhappily blessed with a vein of it.
Charles LambRead