Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Must it ever be thus-that the source of our happiness must also be the fountain of our misery? The full and ardent sentiment which animated my heart with the love of nature, overwhelming me with a torrent of delight, and which brought all paradise before me, has now become an insupportable torment, a demon which perpetually pursues and harrasses me.

There is no past we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternal now that builds and creates out of the past something new and better.

What is the destiny of man, but to fill up the measure of his sufferings, and to drink his allotted cup of bitterness?

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him, he must regard himself as greater than he is.

Every situation — nay, every moment — is of infinite worth; for it is the representative of a whole eternity.

if only these treasures were not so fragile as they are precious and beautiful.

You are aware of only one unrest;
Oh, never learn to know the other!
Two souls, alas, are dwelling in my breast,
And one is striving to forsake its brother.
Unto the world in grossly loving zest,
With clinging tendrils, one adheres;
The other rises forcibly in quest
Of rarefied ancestral spheres.
If there be spirits in the air
That hold their sway between the earth and sky,
Descend out of the golden vapors there
And sweep me into iridescent life.
Oh, came a magic cloak into my hands
To carry me to distant lands,
I should not trade it for the choicest gown,
Nor for the cloak and garments of the crown.

A mans manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.

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.

Do not hurry; do not rest.

I examine my own being, and find there a world, but a world rather of imagination and dim desires, than of distinctness and living power. Then everything swims before my senses, and I smile and dream while pursuing my way through the world.

He who moves not forward, goes backward.

Beware of her fair hair, for she excels
All women in the magic of her locks;
And when she winds them round a young man's neck,
She will not ever set him free again.

Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do; and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension.

Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.