Quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

He who wants to recognize what is alive and describe it, seeks first to drive the spirit out of it. Then, he holds the parts in his hands. But missing is the spirit's band.

THALES. Maybe so. Still, I'll defend a life Lived worthily in its brief time on earth. PROTEUS. A life like yours, yes—it persists Well past the bounds of mortal days. Among the crowd of pale and drifting ghosts 8620 I've noticed you these many centuries.

I, for my share, cannot understand," continued she, "how men have made themselves believe that God speaks to us through books and histories. The man to whom the universe does not reveal directly what relation it has to him, whose heart does not tell him what he owes to himself and others, that man will scarcely learn it out of books, which generally do little more than give our errors names.

The world is so waste and empty, when we figure only towns and hills and rivers in it; but to know of some one here and there whom we accord with, who is living on with us, even in silence,—this makes our earthly ball a peopled garden.

Where Pan protects them. In the cool, wet places Of bushy clefts, nature's nymphs live hidden, 9880 The crowding trees reach upwards with their branches Longingly, after a higher region.

THE LORD. You've nothing more to say to me? You come but to complain unendingly? Is never aught right to your mind? MEPHISTOPHELES. No, Lord! All is still downright bad, I find.

We were the first to carve forms: we began The depiction of gods in the image of Man.

Ben ayr?m?nda de?ilim: Ne zaman gündüz oluyor, ne zaman gece. Evren etraf?mdan silindi ve sadece o kald?.

Few people are capable of concerning themselves with the most recent past. Either the present holds us violently captive, or we lose ourselves in the distant past and strive with might and main to recall and restore what is irrevocably lost.

I have spent the day well just looking and looking. It is the same in art as in life. The deeper one penetrates, the broader grows the view.

A useless life is an early death.

The human race is but a monotonous affair. Most ofthemlabour the greater part oftheir time for mere subsistence; and the scanty portion of freedomwhich remains to themso troubles themthat they use every exertion to get rid ofit.

Of what importance is it that I have learned, with every schoolboy, that the world is round? Man needs but little earth for enjoyment, and still less for his final repose.

Fairytale: presents impossible events under possible or almost impossible conditions as though they were possible.

A part of that Power that, always wishing for Evil, only knows how to do Good. -Mephistopheles

However, come, let's go, the world's turned gray And chilly, evening mists are rising, At nightfall it's indoors you want to be. 1170 But why should you stand still, astonished, staring? What can you see in the dusk to find upsetting?

My friend!" I exclaimed, "man is but man; and, whatever be the extent of his reasoning powers, they are of little avail when passion rages within, and he feels himself confined by the narrow limits of nature. It were better, then — but we will talk of this some other time," I said, and caught up my hat. Alas! my heart was full; and we parted without conviction on either side. How rarely in this world do men understand each other! August

Turn them into summer lightning! When spirits injure and abuse us, Magic must step in to save us.

And I have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair, that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence. In

He values my understanding and talents more highly than my heart, but I am proud of the latter only. It is the sole source of everything of our strength, happiness, and misery. All the knowledge I possess every one else can acquire, but my heart is exclusively my own. May

To spare such speeches, it were well! They of the witches' kitchen smell, And of a time long past and gone. To know the world have I not sought? The empty learned, the empty taught?- Spake I out plainly, as in reason bound, Then doubly loud the paradox would sound; By Fortune's adverse buffets overborne To solitude I fled, to wilds forlorn, And not in utter loneliness to live, Myself at last did to the Devil give!

The question, therefore, is not whether a man is weak or strong, but whether he can endure the full extent of his sufferings, be they of a moral or physical nature.

Her presence, her fate, her sympathy for me, have power still to extract tears from my withered brain.

Consider a man confined within his bounds, influenced by impressions, beset by ideas, till one day a growing passion overthrows his contemplative composure and destroys him.