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The best quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Poet, writer and playwright, born thursday august 28, 1749 in Frankfurt am Main (Germany), died thursday march 22, 1832 in Weimar (Germany)
You can find this author also in Poems.
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Posted by: 0kiika0
in Quotes & Aphorisms ()
"You were happy!" I exclaimed, as I returned quickly to the town, "as gay and contented as a man can be!" God of heaven! And is this the destiny of man? Is he only happy before he has acquired his reason, or after he has lost it? Unfortunate being! And yet I envy your fate: I envy the delusion to which you are a victim. You go forth with joy to gather flowers for your princess, in winter, and grieve when you can find none, and cannot understand why they do not grow. But I wander forth without joy, without hope, without design; and I return as I came. You fancy what a man you would be if the states general paid you. Happy mortal, who can ascribe your wretchedness to an earthly cause! You do not know, you do not feel, that in your own distracted heart and disordered brain dwells the source of that unhappiness which all the potentates on earth cannot relieve. Let that man die unconsoled who can deride the invalid for undertaking a journey to distant, healthful springs, where he often finds only a heavier disease and a more painful death, or who can exult over the despairing mind of a sinner, who, to obtain peace of conscience and an alleviation of misery, makes a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre. Each laborious step which galls his wounded feet in rough and untrodden paths pours a drop of balm into his troubled soul, and the journey of many a weary day brings a nightly relief to his anguished heart. Will you dare call this enthusiasm, ye crowd of pompous declaimers? Enthusiasm! O God! thou seest my tears. Thou hast allotted us our portion of misery: must we also have brethren to persecute us, to deprive us of our consolation, of our trust in thee, and in thy love and mercy? For our trust in the virtue of the healing root, or in the strength of the vine, what is it else than a belief in thee from whom all that surrounds us not, --who wert once wont to fill my soul, but who now hidest thy face from me, call me back to thee; be silent no longer; thy silence shall not delay a soul which thirsts after thee. What man, what father, could be angry with a son for returning to him suddenly, for falling on his neck, and exclaiming, "I am here again, my father! Forgive me if I have anticipated my journey, and returned before the appointed time! The world is everywhere the same, a scene of labour able passion for everything that is dear to you?"
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
from the book "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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    Posted by: Marguerite
    in Quotes & Aphorisms ()
    Some men think about the defects of their friends, and there is nothing to be gained by it. What people commonly call Fate is, as a general rule, nothing but their own stupid and foolish conduct.I have always paid attention to the merits of my enemies, and found it an advantage.
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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      Posted by: Silvia
      in Quotes & Aphorisms ()
      She jumped into the boat and rowed out on the lake, to then take out a travel book, letting herself be lulled by the movement of the waves, she read, she dreamt herself far away, in foreign lands where she always found her friend, to whose heart she had always remained close, as he was to hers.
      Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
      from the book "" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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