Quotes About Goethe

I have never forgotten that phrase of the biologist, Haeckel, whom I read in the infancy of my intelligence, at that age when one reads scientific publications and arguments against religion. The phrase goes more or less like this: the superior man (a Kant or a Goethe, I think he says) is farther removed from the common man than the common man is from the monkey.

Naught so insipid in the world I find As is a devil in despair.

Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture.

Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,Who ne'er the mournful midnight hoursWeeping upon his bed has sate,He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers.

The spirits that I summoned upI now can't rid myself of.

It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.

If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.

Though the ear choose not to hear, In the heart I echo,clear: Always found, and never sought, Praised, as well as cursed, in thought.

So much simplicity with so much understanding — so mild, and yet so resolute — a mind so placid, and a life so active.

He calls it reason, using it To be more beast than ever beast was yet.

Dust shall he eat, and greedily, like my celebrated serpent-cousin

He is a prophet and not a poet and therefore his Koran is to be seen as a divine law and not as a book of a human being, made for education or entertainment.

He [Muhammed] is a prophet and not a poet and therefore his Koran is to be seen as a divine law and not as a book of a human being, made for education or entertainment.

Did I not feel charmed at those truly genuine expressions of nature, which, though but little mirthful in reality, so often amused us?

No: ill-humour arises from an inward consciousness of our own want of merit, from a discontent which ever accompanies that envy which foolish vanity engenders.

You spend too much time on ephemeras. The majority of modern books are merely wavering reflections of the present. They disappear very quickly. You should read more old books. The classics. Goethe. What is merely new is the most transitory of all things. It is beautiful today, and tomorrow merely ludicrous.

O frio e o calor alternam dentro de mim com as palavras de uma frase, sonho com a expansão e a queda melodiosas. Leio frases de Goethe como se percorresse com todo o meu corpoa gama de entoações

Goethe's theory of the constitution of colours of the spectrum has not proved to be an unsatisfactory theory, rather it really isn't a theory at all. Nothing can be predicted with it. It is, rather a vague schematic outline of the sort we find in James's psychology. Nor is there any experimentum crucis which could decide for or against the theory.

I refer to all you write about Cocteau, [Eugene] Jolas & Goethe—with the changefulness of tone, the mockery of the "pomp" in the next paragraph.)

Goethe—it's amusing how we agree about Goethe. The man who sought out serenity and sanity. I hardly know him, and I hate him.

Too much mind, though, Henry! I do not like Goethe's complete transference into ideas. I do not like his second metamorphosis. That is not for you. You must, like me, turn it on and off.

The sense in which Goethe was right: Continued life means expectation, Death is the abolition of choice. The more choice is limited, the closer we are to death. The greatest cruelty is to curtail expectations without taking away life completely. A life term in prison is like that. So is citizenship in some countries. The best solution would be to live as if the ordinary expectations had not been removed, not from day to day, blindly. But that requires immense self-mastery.

FAUST You seem to like eavesdropping. MEPHISTOPHELES I am not omniscient, but I know a lot.