Goethe Quotes

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers & cities; but to know someone who thinks & feels with us, & who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.

~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Art is bad when ‘you see the intent and get put off.’ (Goethe) In Tolstoy one is unaware of the intent, and sees only the thing itself. from the book, On Retranslating A Russian Classic Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

~ Joel Carmichael

Faustus, who embraced evil and shunned righteousness, became the foremost symbol of the misuse of free will, that sublime gift from God with its inherent opportunity to choose virtue and reject iniquity. “What shall a man gain if he has the whole world and lose his soul,” (Matt. 16: v. 26) - but for a notorious name, the ethereal shadow of a career, and a brief life of fleeting pleasure with no true peace? This was the blackest and most captivating tragedy of all, few could have remained indifferent to the growing intrigue of this individual who apparently shook hands with the devil and freely chose to descend to the molten, sulphuric chasm of Hell for all eternity for so little in exchange. It is a drama that continues to fascinate today as powerfully as when Faustus first disseminated his infamous card in the Heidelberg locale to the scandal of his generation. In fine, a life of good or evil, the hope of Heaven or the despair of Hell, Faustus stands as a reminder that the choice between these two absolutes also falls to us.

~ E.a. Bucchianeri

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

~ Idries Shah

The limits of my language are the limits of my universe.

~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

We are all pilgrims who seek Italy.

~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

By Fortune's adverse buffets overborneTo solitude I fled, to wilds forlorn,And not in utter loneliness to live,Myself at last did to the Devil give!

~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

If I wasn't a devil myself I'd give Me up to the Devil this very minute.

~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Read this book ... but understand it’s fiction. And let life be ... your most important addiction.

~ John Zelazny

There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they find to laugh at.

~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... the vintage of history is forever repeating ~ same old vines, same old wines!

~ E.a. Bucchianeri

You yourself are your own barrier – rise from within it.

~ Idries Shah

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

~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

15General ideas and great conceit are always a fair way to bring about terrible misfortune.

~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Dandies, who – as you know - scorn all emotions as being beneath them, and do not believe, like that simpleton Goethe, that astonishment can ever be a proper feeling for the human mind.

~ Jules Barbey D'aurevilly

Upon the publication of Goethe’s epic drama, the Faustian legend had reached an almost unapproachable zenith. Although many failed to appreciate, or indeed, to understand this magnum opus in its entirety, from this point onward his drama was the rule by which all other Faust adaptations were measured. Goethe had eclipsed the earlier legends and became the undisputed authority on the subject of Faust in the eyes of the new Romantic generation. To deviate from his path would be nothing short of blasphemy.

~ E.a. Bucchianeri