87 Quotes About Goethe

Des Menschen Kraft, im Dichter offenbartThe human power is revealed by poetIl potere dell'umanità si rivela nel poeta

-what good for us this endless creating? / what is created - then annihilating? \ '& now IT'S PAST'!.. '" --Mephistopheles (Faust; Pt II)

Yes, there are in me the makings of a very fine loafer, and also of a pretty spry sort of fellow. I often think of those lines of old Goethe: 'Schade, daß die Natur nur einen Menschen aus dir schuf; Denn zum würdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff.'

Gustav Mahler always carried Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre with him on concert tours, for instance, and read aloud from the Critique of Pure Reason to Alma when she was in labour.

Na een paar maanden constateert hij [Goethe] dat het hem zwaar valt rekenschap af te leggen van zijn verblijf, want - zo noteert hij op 25 januari 1787 - 'zoals men merkt dat de zee steeds dieper wordt naarmate men haar verder opvaart, zo vergaat het ook mij bij het beschouwen van deze stad'. Zich Rome werkelijk toe-eigenen vergt een mensenleven - zo verzucht de auteur enkele maanden later - 'of zelfs het leven van vele mensen, die stap voor stap van elkaar leren.

Alas, I have studied philosophy, / the law as well as medicine, / and to my sorrow, theology; / studied them well with ardent zeal, / yet here I am, a wretched fool, / no wiser than I was before.

The lord whose is the oracle at Delphoi neither utters nor hides his meaning, but shows it by a sign.The Sibyl, with raving lips uttering things mirthless, unbedizened, and unperfumed, reaches over a thousand years with her voice, thanks to the god in her.

A man must be a Salomon before his magical ring will work

Not like Homer would I write,Not like Dante if I might,Not like Shakespeare at his best,Not like Goethe or the rest,Like myself, however small,Like myself, or not at all.