Goethe

This article is about GritCult's view of Goethe. For a general overview, see Goethe on Wikipedia.

Goethe
“In their meeting in 1808. Napoleon also famously greeted Goethe as "Voilà un homme!” Which translates to…” (5 June 2025)
In the archive
Portal	The Philosophers
Posts	39
Retweets	150
Likes	949
First post	5 June 2018
Latest post	5 June 2025
Posts by year
20187
201910
20204
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Related
Camus Nietzsche Napoleon Aristotle C.S. Lewis

Goethe appears in 39 posts from 2018 to 2025, mostly as a source of maxims on action, leadership and character. GritCult reads him alongside Nietzsche and prefers him as a temperament: the striving, Faustian man without the madness.

Views

Goethe's main job is to demand action. One of the lines GritCult posts most often, in several wordings across 2018, 2021 and 2023, is 'IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO KNOW, WE MUST ALSO APPLY; IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO WILL, WE MUST ALSO DO' ^[1]. Companion cards hold that doubt can only be removed by action and that nothing is more frightful than ignorance in action, so the bias for doing comes with a warning attached. In April 2019 he put Faust's line in his own words, 'man errs so long as he strives, its the process of striving, the process that must be adamant' ^[2], treating error as the price of motion rather than an argument against it.

His most-retweeted Goethe post is a leadership maxim, 'Divide and Rule, a sound motto; Unite and Lead, a better one.' ^[3], first posted in a burst of Goethe quotes at the end of December 2018 and reposted three times since. The same burst bent one line to the account's own name: 'Love does not dominate, it CULTivates' ^[4]. Character and independence fill out the picture, from the tree whose shadow is reputation to Goethe's refusal to join factions: 'People always want me to take sides; well then, I'm on my own side.' ^[5].

Goethe also matters as a model of temperament. Reading Nietzsche on Goethe felt to him like 'a warm embrace of an old friend' ^[6], and a 2019 shower thought proposed that the best argument against Nietzsche is his own life, before reducing the contrast to 'Mad : Nietzsche. Glad : Goethe.' ^[7]. In 2025 he recalled Napoleon greeting Goethe as 'Voilà un homme!', which he rendered 'Here is a real man!' ^[8]. That is the Goethe GritCult wants: a thinker whose life, as much as his writing, settles the argument.

Recurring themes

• knowledge worthless until applied
• striving through error
• uniting over dividing
• standing on one's own side
• the glad alternative to Nietzsche

Notable post

The most retweeted GritCult post on the subject, with 23 retweets:

Selected posts

All 39 posts in the archive about Goethe, ranked by retweets. Select a column heading to sort.

Date	Retweets	Likes	Post	Media	Source
30 December 2018	23	137	"Divide and Rule, a sound motto; Unite and Lead, a better one." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.		View
25 August 2021	15	40	"IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO KNOW, WE MUST ALSO APPLY; IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO WILL, WE MUST ALSO DO." - GOETHE		View
29 July 2019	14	52	“Beauty is the manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.” — Goethe		View
8 November 2022	10	43	THE HARDEST THING TO SEE IS WHAT IS IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES. - JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE		View
1 February 2023	8	45	THE HUMAN MIND WILL NOT BE CONFINED TO ANY LIMITS. - JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE		View
28 February 2023	8	40	"THINGS WHICH MATTER MOST MUST NEVER BE AT THE MERCY OF THINGS WHICH MATTER LEAST." - GOETHE		View
30 December 2018	7	39	The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth. - Goethe		View
30 December 2018	6	42	Knowing is not enough; we must apply Willing is not enough; we must do. - Goethe.		View
5 June 2025	5	60	In their meeting in 1808. Napoleon also famously greeted Goethe as "Voilà un homme!” Which translates to "Here is a real man!"		View
26 May 2020	5	23	“Choose well. Your choice is brief, and yet endless.” ― Goethe see also @QuoteCULT		View
9 June 2021	5	15	"DIVIDE AND RULE, A SOUND MOTTO; UNITE AND LEAD, A BETTER ONE." - JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE.		View
23 February 2022	4	40	"THE GREATEST EVIL THAT CAN BEFALL MAN IS THAT HE SHOULD COME TO THINK ILL OF HIMSELF." - JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE		View
15 April 2023	4	33	KNOWING IS NOT ENOUGH; WE MUST APPLY. WILLING IS NOT ENOUGH; WE MUST DO. - JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE		View
14 March 2023	3	39	"IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO KNOW, WE MUST ALSO APPLY; IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO WILL, WE MUST ALSO DO." - GOETHE		View
16 December 2023	3	39	THE HARDEST THING TO SEE IS WHAT IS IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES. - JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE		View
30 December 2018	3	34	A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait. - Goethe.		View
30 December 2018	3	30	Love does not dominate, it CULTivates. - Goethe		View
27 April 2023	3	21	CHARACTER IS LIKE A TREE AND REPUTATION LIKE ITS SHADOW. THE SHADOW IS WHAT WE THINK OF IT, THE TREE IS THE REAL THING. - JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE		View
16 June 2020	3	18	Goethe: "People always want me to take sides; well then, I'm on my own side."		View
18 April 2019	3	4	"Man errs, so long as he strives" - Goethe. One must strive.... against.		View
17 August 2019	2	21	To live as one likes is plebeian, the noble man aspires to order and law. Johann von Goethe		View
22 February 2021	2	19	"DOUBT CAN ONLY BE REMOVED BY ACTION." - JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE		View
1 October 2021	2	18	"THE INTELLIGENT MAN FINDS ALMOST EVERYTHING RIDICULOUS, THE SENSIBLE MAN HARDLY ANYTHING." - JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE		View
3 February 2023	2	18	"DIVIDE AND RULE, A SOUND MOTTO; UNITE AND LEAD, A BETTER ONE." - JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE.# - @GRITCULT		View
2 April 2019	2	11	"For I have been a man, and that means to have been a fighter." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe		View
28 June 2021	2	10	THERE IS NOTHING MORE FRIGHTFUL THAN IGNORANCE IN ACTION. - JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE		View
16 July 2021	1	6	"Divide and Rule, a sound motto; Unite and Lead, a better one." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.#		View
2 November 2020	1	2	Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.		View
31 January 2019	1	1	@JamesPDowling @jdconners @MimeticValue @dopaminendreams No, @NOMADCULT because it is coming from the guy who reads Deleuze Goethe and Plato in my spare time, that I can say it's ALL bullshit. Watch good will hunting. It tackles this very thing. Everyone thinks they have the answer. I say fuck that.		View
13 December 2019	0	20	Was reading Nietzsche on Goethe while at work today. Felt like a warm embrace of an old friend. Beautiful. I recommend everyone read it too		View
24 August 2021	0	17	"AS SOON AS YOU TRUST YOURSELF, YOU WILL KNOW HOW TO LIVE." - GOETHE		View
15 March 2019	0	6	Shower thought : If you believe in acta non verba, actions over words. Then the best argument against Nietzsche is his own life. He hated those academics and what not, but wasn't he one? A contentious point, sure. In symbol minded terms : Mad : Nietzsche. Glad : Goethe.		View
7 March 2019	0	3	"The ear is mute, the lips deaf. But the eye senses and speaks. In it the world is reflected from without, and man from within." Goethe		View
26 May 2020	0	3	146: Goethe quotes.		View
5 June 2018	0	0	@PereGrimmer making me dig deep for goethe, i like that		View
31 December 2018	0	0	@peacefulcuala44 I'm not describing anything. I'm quoting Goethe.		View
20 May 2019	0	0	@jdconners Would say his view of Uber mensch sure was Promethean (see Goethe) and thus idealistic. Not so much Christian, as much as say for example a feminist by way of inherited epistemology and thus a child of Marxism. But back to Leibniz, a German polymath who wrestled iirc		View
26 October 2019	0	0	@MaansnijderJan Didn’t Goethe do law?		View
13 September 2021	0	0	THERE IS NOTHING MORE FRIGHTFUL THAN IGNORANCE IN ACTION. - JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE		View

History

GritCult first posted about Goethe on 5 June 2018, and most recently on 5 June 2025. Across the archive the subject comes up 39 times, most often in 2019 (10 posts).

See also

The Philosophers portal

References

1. ^GRITCULT [@GRITCULT] (25 August 2021). IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO KNOW, WE MUST ALSO APPLY; IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO WILL, WE MUST ALSO DO. X.
2. ^GRITCULT [@GRITCULT] (2 April 2019). man errs so long as he strives, its the process of striving, the process that must be adamant. X.
3. ^GRITCULT [@GRITCULT] (30 December 2018). Divide and Rule, a sound motto; Unite and Lead, a better one. X.
4. ^GRITCULT [@GRITCULT] (30 December 2018). Love does not dominate, it CULTivates. X.
5. ^GRITCULT [@GRITCULT] (16 June 2020). People always want me to take sides; well then, I'm on my own side. X.
6. ^GRITCULT [@GRITCULT] (13 December 2019). Felt like a warm embrace of an old friend. X.
7. ^GRITCULT [@GRITCULT] (15 March 2019). Mad : Nietzsche. Glad : Goethe. X.
8. ^GRITCULT [@GRITCULT] (5 June 2025). Napoleon also famously greeted Goethe as "Voilà un homme!" ... Which translates to "Here is a real man!". X.

External links

• Posts about Goethe by GRITCULT on X
• Goethe on Wikipedia