Quotes About Longing

Yesterday, when I took leave she seized me by the hand, and said, "Adieu, dear Werther." Dear Werther! It was the first time she ever called me dear: the sound sunk deep into my heart. I have repeated it a hundred times; and last night, on going to bed, and talking to myself of various things, I suddenly said, "Good night, dear Werther!" and then could not but laugh at myself.

Oh, diese Eifersucht ist noch viel unbegreiflicher als unsre Liebe, denn wir können doch nicht alle Weiber und Mädchen zu unserm Eigentum machen; aber das lüsterne Auge läßt sich keine Schranken setzen, unsre Phantasie ist wie das Faß der Danaiden, unser Sehnen umfängt und umarmt jeglichen Busen.«

Lontani dall'oggetto amato sembriamo diventare, quanto più è intenso il nostro affetto, tanto più padroni di noi stessi, scaricando all'interno di noi tutta la violenza della passione che si dirigeva verso l'esterno; ma se la persona a cui credevamo di poter rinunciare si ripresenta all'improvviso ai nostri occhi con tutta la parvenza dell'irrinunciabile, allora veniamo rapidamente, subitaneamente strappati fuori dell'errore." - Le affinità elettive.

Oh God, how do the world and heavens confine themselves, when our hearts tremble in their own barriers!

I have so much in me, and the feeling for her absorbs it all; I have so much, and without her it all comes to nothing.

I love those who yearn for the impossible.

What a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it!

Wild dreams torment me as I lie. And though a god lives in my heart, though all my power waken at his word, though he can move my every inmost part - yet nothing in the outer world is stirred. thus by existence tortured and oppressed I crave for death, I long for rest.

Think of you! I do not think of you; you are always before my soul.

When I say to the Moment flying; 'Linger a while -- thou art so fair!' Then bind me in thy bonds undying, And my final ruin I will bear!

from desire I rush to satisfaction; from satisfaction I leap to desire.

Please send me your last pair of shoes, worn out with dancing as you mentioned in your letter, so that I might have something to press against my heart.

Poetry, dreams, desire, everything leads me to you.

What I possess, I see far distant lying, And what I lost, grows real and undying.

Life seems so vulgar, so easily content with the commonplace things of every day, and yet it always nurses and cherishes certain higher claims in secret, and looks about for the means of satisfying them.

The hands want to see, the eyes want to caress.

Ay de mí! Este vacío, este horrible vacío que siente mi alma... Muchas veces me digo: "Si pudiera un momento, uno solo estrecharla contra mi corazón, todo este vacío se llenaría.

Oh, I envy you!" he cried. "You are still nourished by yesterday's alms, but yesterday's happiness no longer nourishes me.

A vast dawning entirety lies before the soul, our senses lose themselves in it as do our eyes and oh! we long to make the oblation of all our being and to be filled utterly with the bliss of a single large and glorious feeling.—And oh! when we hurry after it, when There becomes Here, all is as it was and we stand in our poverty, in our narrowness, and the soul in us parches for the elusive freshening.

A hundred times have I seized a dagger, to give ease to this oppressed heart. Naturalists tell of a noble race of horses that instinctively open a vein with their teeth, when heated and exhausted by a long course, in order to breathe more freely. I am often tempted to open a vein, to procure for myself everlasting liberty.

One hundred times have I been on the point of embracing her. Heavens! What a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it. And laying hold is the most natural of human instincts. So not children touch everything they see? And I!

I think of you when upon the sea the sun flings her beams. I think of you when the moonlight shines in silvery streams. I see you when upon the distant hills the dust awakes; At night when on a fragile bridge the traveler quakes. I hear you when the billows rise on high, With murmur deep. To tread the silent grove where wander I, When all's asleep.

In the same way, the most restless of travellers ends up pining for his homeland once again, and discovers in his cottage, in the arms of his wife and amidst his children, and in the labours that are necessary to support them, that joy he sought in vain in the wide world.

Siento tantas cosas..., y mi pasión por ella lo devora todo! ¡Tantas cosas! . . . ¡Y sin ella todo se reduce a nada!