Posted by: Lucio Dusso
Our modern wars make many unhappy while they last and make no one happy when they are finished.
from the book "" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Posted by: Stefano Del Degan
in Quotes & Aphorisms (Wisdom)
The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.
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Posted by: Edmond Dantès
in Quotes & Aphorisms (Life)
Everything around is alive with an infinite number of forms; while mankind fly for security to their petty houses, from the shelter of which they rule in their imaginations over the wide-extended universe. Poor fool! in whose petty estimation all things are little.
from the book "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Posted by: Edmond Dantès
So we split without having understood each other. But it is not easy to understand one another in this world.
from the book "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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?"
from the book "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Posted by: 0kiika0
What ever is man, this much appreciated demigod? Doesn't his strength abandon him in moments of need? And that he may take flight with joy or collapse in pain, isn't he arrested in both cases, lead back to the dark, cold feeling of himself, whilst he intended losing himself in the ocean of infinity?
from the book "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Posted by: 0kiika0
in Quotes & Aphorisms (Life)
No trace of that vanished world, no heart beat that answers my past feelings! I am like a ghost, who sees battered and burnt that castle which once he, a blooming prince, had created adorning it of every splendour, and that dying had left, full of hope, to his beloved son...
from the book "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Posted by: 0kiika0
in Quotes & Aphorisms (Love)
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.
from the book "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Posted by: 0kiika0
in Quotes & Aphorisms (Life)
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.
from the book "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Posted by: 0kiika0
in Quotes & Aphorisms (Life)
"This is another of your extravagant humours", said Albert: "you always exaggerate a case, and in this matter you are undoubtedly wrong; for we were speaking of suicide, which you compare with great actions, when it is impossible to regard it as anything but a weakness. It is much easier to die than to bear a life of misery with fortitude." I was on the point of breaking off the conversation, for nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart. However, I composed myself, for I had often heard the same observation with sufficient vexation; and I answered him, therefore, with a little warmth, "You call this a weakness --beware of being led astray by appearances. When a nation, which has long groaned under the intolerable yoke of a tyrant, rises at last and throws off its chains, do you call that weakness? The man who, to rescue his house from the flames, finds his physical strength redoubled, so that he lifts burdens with ease, which, in the absence of excitement, he could scarcely move; he who, under the rage of an insult, attacks and puts to flight half a score of his enemies, are such persons to be called weak? My good friend, if resistance be strength, how can the highest degree of resistance be a weakness?"
from the book "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe