The Sorrows of Young Werther

The best Quotes from the Book:The Sorrows of Young Werther

Author:
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Publisher:
Giunti Editore

Posted by: 0kiika0
"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?"
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    Posted by: 0kiika0
    Mad are those who cannot see that the place means nothing, and that he who has the first position rarely sits in the most important office! How many kings are governed by their ministers, how many ministers from their secretaries! Who is then the first? I think he who dominates others, he who has sufficient power or cunning to make his passion work out in the execution of his plans.
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      Posted by: 0kiika0
      When you men talk of something, do you have to always say: it is folly, it is wise, it is good, it is bad! But what does this mean? Have you, who talk this way, investigated the internal movements of an action? Do you know how to understand with certainty the causes, and understand why that happened and why it had to happen? If you had done so you would be less ready to judge.
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        Posted by: 0kiika0
        More than once have I been drunk, my passions are not far from delirium, and of these two things I do not feel sorry because I have learnt to understand that all extraordinary men that have done something great, and that seemed impossible to achieve, have been considered in every era to be drunks or mad. But, even in everyday life it is unbearable to hear say, every time that someone is about to do a free, noble and unexpected action "That man is drunk, he is mad!"
        Be ashamed of yourselves, you sober and wise men!
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          Posted by: 0kiika0
          In the evening I propose myself to enjoy the rising of the sun and the next morning I don't move from my bed; during the day I intend to view the spectacle of the moonlight and then I remain in my room. I don't exactly know why I get up, why I go to bed. I am missing the yeast that keeps my life in ferment; the fascination that kept me awake during the deepest of nights has vanished, the enchantment of mornings that kept me awake has fled.
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