Q0471

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

What you have inherited from your fathers, earn it in order to possess it.
Thinker Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
School German Classical Thought
Source Maxims
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Maxims, within the tradition of German Classical Thought. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of philosophy, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. (n.d.). What you have inherited from your fathers, earn it in order to possess it. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0471

MLA: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. “What you have inherited from your fathers, earn….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0471.

Chicago: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. “What you have inherited from your fathers, earn….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0471.

Same thinker

More from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  1. Whoever strives with all his might, him can we save.
  2. All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.
  3. Two souls, alas, are dwelling in my breast.

All quotations by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the philosophy theme