Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  164

  No one is the master of any truly productive energy; and all men must let it work on by itself.

  165

  A man never understands how anthropomorphic he is.

  166

  A difference which offers nothing to the understanding is no difference at all.

  167

  A man cannot live for every one; least of all for those with whom he would not care to live.

  168

  If a man sets out to study all the laws, he will have no time left to transgress them.

  169

  Things that are mysterious are not yet miracles.

  170

  ‘Converts are not in my good books.’

  171

  A frivolous impulsive encouragement of problematical talents was a mistake of my early years; and I have never been able to abandon it altogether.

  172

  I should like to be honest with you, without our falling out; but it will not do. You act wrongly, and fall between two stools; you win no adherents and lose your friends. What is to be the end of it?

  173

  It is all one whether you are of high or of humble origin. You will always have to pay for your humanity.

  174

  When I hear people speak of liberal ideas, it is always a wonder to me that men are so readily put off with empty verbiage. An idea cannot be liberal; but it may be potent, vigorous, exclusive, in order to fulfil its mission of being productive. Still less can a concept be liberal; for a concept has quite another mission. Where, however, we must look for liberality, is in the sentiments; and the sentiments are the inner man as he lives and moves. A man’s sentiments, however, are rarely liberal, because they proceed directly from him personally, and from his immediate relations and requirements. Further we will not write, and let us apply this test to what we hear every day.

  175

  If a clever man commits a folly, it is not a small one.

  176

  There is a poetry without figures of speech, which is a single figure of speech.

  177

  I went on troubling myself about general ideas until I learnt to understand the particular achievements of the best men.

  178

  It is only when a man knows little, that he knows anything at all. With knowledge grows doubt.

  179

  The errors of a man are what make him really lovable.

  180

  There are men who love their like and seek it; others love their opposite and follow after it.

  181

  If a man has always let himself think the world as bad as the adversary represents it to be, he must have become a miserable person.

  182

  Ill-favour and hatred limit the spectator to the surface, even when keen perception is added unto them; but when keen perception unites with good-will and love, it gets at the heart of man and the world; nay, it may hope to reach the highest goal of all.

  183

  Raw matter is seen by every one; the contents are found only by him who has his eyes about him; and the form is a secret to the majority.

  184

  We may learn to know the world as we please: it will always retain a bright and a dark side.

  185

  Error is continually repeating itself in action, and we must unweariedly repeat the truth in word.

  186

  As in Rome there is, apart from the Romans, a population of statues, so apart from this real world there is a world of illusion, almost more potent, in which most men live.

  187

  Mankind is like the Red Sea: the staff has scarcely parted the waves asunder, before they flow together again.

  188

  Thoughts come back; beliefs persist; facts pass by never to return.

  189

  Of all peoples, the Greeks have dreamt the dream of life the best.

  190

  We readily bow to antiquity, but not to posterity. It is only a father that does not grudge talent to his son.

  191

  There is no virtue in subordinating oneself; but there is virtue in descending, and in recognising anything as above us, which is beneath us.

  192

  The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist.

  193

  All our pursuits and actions are a wearying process. Well is it for him who wearies not.

  194

  Hope is the second soul of the unhappy.

  195

  Love is a true renovator.

  196

  Mankind is not without a wish to serve; hence the chivalry of the French is a servitude.

  197

  In the theatre the pleasure of what we see and hear restrains our reflections.

  198

  There is no limit to the increase of experience, but theories cannot become clearer and more complete in just the same sense. The field of experience is the whole universe in all directions. Theory remains shut up within the limits of the human faculties. Hence there is no way of looking at the world, but it recurs, and the curious thing happens, that with increased experience a limited theory may again come into favour.

  It is always the same world which stands open to observation, which is continually being contemplated or guessed at; and it is always the same men who live in the true or in the false; more at their ease in the latter than in the former.

  199

  Truth is at variance with our natures, but not so error; and for a very simple reason. Truth requires us to recognise ourselves as limited, but error flatters us with the belief that in one way or another we are subject to no bounds at all.

  200

  That some men think they can still do what they have been able to do, is natural enough; that others think they can do what they have never been able to do, is singular, but not rare.

  201

  At all times it has not been the age, but individuals alone, who have worked for knowledge. It was the age which put Socrates to death by poison, the age which burnt Huss. The ages have always remained alike.

  202

  That is true Symbolism, where the more particular represents the more general, not as a dream or shade, but as a vivid, instantaneous revelation of the Inscrutable.

  203

  Everything of an abstract or symbolic nature, as soon as it is challenged by realities, ends by consuming them and itself. So credit consumes both money and itself.

  204

  Mastery often passes for egoism.

  205

  With Protestants, as soon as good works cease and their merit is denied, sentimentality takes their place.

  206

  If a man knows where to get good advice, it is as though he could supply it himself.

  207

  The use of mottoes is to indicate something we have not attained, but strive to attain. It is right to keep them always before our eyes.

  208

  ‘If a man cannot lift a stone himself, let him leave it, even though he has some one to help him.’

  209

  Despotism promotes general self-government, because from top to bottom it makes the individual responsible, and so produces the highest degree of activity.

  210

  A man must pay dear for his errors if he wishes to get rid of them, and even then he is lucky.

  211

  Enthusiasm is of the greatest value, so long as we are not carried away by it.

  212

  School itself is the only true preparation for it.

  213

  Error is related to truth as sleep to waking. I have observed that on awakening from error a man turns again to truth as with new vigour.

  214

  Every one suffers who does not work for himself. A man works for others to have them share in his joy.

  215

  Men’s prejudices rest upon their character for the time being and cannot be overcome, as being part and parcel of themselves. Neither evidence nor common-
sense nor reason has the slightest influence upon them.

  216

  Characters often make a law of their failings. Men who know the world have said that when prudence is only fear in disguise, its scruples cannot be conquered. The weak often have revolutionary sentiments; they think they would be well off if they were not ruled, and fail to perceive that they can rule neither themselves nor others.

  217

  Common-sense is born pure in the healthy man, is self-developed, and is revealed by a resolute perception and recognition of what is necessary and useful. Practical men and women avail themselves of it with confidence. Where it is absent, both sexes find anything necessary when they desire it, and useful when it gives them pleasure.

  218

  All men, as they attain freedom, give play to their errors. The strong do too much, and the weak too little.

  219

  The conflict of the old, the existing, the continuing, with development, improvement, and reform, is always the same. Order of every kind turns at last to pedantry, and to get rid of the one, people destroy the other; and so it goes on for a while, until people perceive that order must be established anew. Classicism and Romanticism; close corporations and freedom of trade; the maintenance of large estates and the division of the land, — it is always the same conflict which ends by producing a new one. The best policy of those in power would be so to moderate this conflict as to let it right itself without the destruction of either element. But this has not been granted to men, and it seems not to be the will of God.

  220

  A great work limits us for the moment, because we feel it above our powers; and only in so far as we afterwards incorporate it with our culture, and make it part of our mind and heart, does it become a dear and worthy object.

  221

  It is no wonder that we all more or less delight in the mediocre, because it leaves us in peace: it gives us the comfortable feeling of intercourse with what is like ourselves.

  222

  There is no use in reproving vulgarity, for it never changes.

  223

  We cannot escape a contradiction in ourselves; we must try to resolve it. If the contradiction comes from others, it does not affect us: it is their affair.

  224

  There are many things in the world that are at once good and excellent, but they do not come into contact.

  225

  Which is the best government? That which teaches us to govern ourselves.

  226

  When men have to do with women, they get spun off like a distaff.

  227

  It may well be that a man is at times horribly threshed by misfortunes, public and private: but the reckless flail of Fate, when it beats the rich sheaves, crushes only the straw; and the corn feels nothing of it and dances merrily on the floor, careless whether its way is to the mill or the furrow.

  228

  However probable it is that a desire may be fulfilled, there is always a doubt; and so when the desire is realised, it is always surprising.

  229

  Absurdities presented with good taste rouse disgust and admiration.

  230

  Of the best society it used to be said: their speech instructs the mind, and their silence the feelings.

  231

  Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.

  232

  Beauty and Genius must be kept afar if one would avoid becoming their slave.

  233

  We treat the aged with consideration, as we treat children.

  234

  An old man loses one of the greatest of human privileges: he is no more judged by his peers.

  235

  In the matter of knowledge, it has happened to me as to one who rises early, and in the dark impatiently awaits the dawn, and then the sun; but is blinded when it appears.

  236

  Great primeval powers, evolved in time or in eternity, work on unceasingly: whether to weal or to woe, is a matter of chance.

  IV

  237

  People often say to themselves in life that they should avoid a variety of occupation, and, more particularly, be the less willing to enter upon new work the older they grow. But it is easy to talk, easy to give advice to oneself and others. To grow old is itself to enter upon a new business; all the circumstances change, and a man must either cease acting altogether, or willingly and consciously take over the new rôle.

  238

  Of the Absolute in the theoretical sense, I do not venture to speak; but this I maintain: that if a man recognises it in its manifestation, and always keeps his gaze fixed upon it, he will experience very great reward.

  239

  To live in a great idea means to treat the impossible as though it were possible. It is just the same with a strong character; and when an idea and a character meet, things arise which fill the world with wonder for thousands of years.

  240

  Napoleon lived wholly in a great idea, but he was unable to take conscious hold of it. After utterly disavowing all ideals and denying them any reality, he zealously strove to realise them. His clear, incorruptible intellect could not, however, tolerate such a perpetual conflict within; and there is much value in the thoughts which he was compelled, as it were, to utter, and which are expressed very peculiarly and with much charm.

  241

  He considered the idea as a thing of the mind, that had, it is true, no reality, but still, on passing away, left a residuum — a caput mortuum — to which some reality could not be altogether refused. We may think this a very perverse and material notion; but when he entertained his friends with the neverending consequences of his life and actions, in full belief and confidence in them, he expressed himself quite differently. Then, indeed, he was ready to admit that life produces life; that a fruitful act has effects to all time. He took pleasure in confessing that he had given a great impulse, a new direction, to the course of the world’s affairs.

  242

  It always remains a very remarkable fact that men whose whole personality is almost all idea, are so extremely shy of all phantasy. In this case was Hamann, who could not bear the mention of “things of another world.” He took occasion to express himself on this point in a certain paragraph, which he wrote in fourteen different ways; and still, apparently, he was never quite satisfied with it.

  Two of these attempts have been preserved to us; a third we have ourselves attempted, which we are induced to print here by the preceding observations.

  243

  Man is placed as a real being in the midst of a real world, and endowed with such organs that he can perceive and produce the real and also the possible.

  All healthy men have the conviction of their own existence and of an existence around them. However, even the brain contains a hollow spot, that is to say, a place in which no object is mirrored; just as in the eye itself there is a little spot that does not see. If a man pays particular attention to this spot and is absorbed in it, he falls into a state of mental sickness, has presentiments of “things of another world,” which are, in reality, no things at all; possessing neither form nor limit, but alarming him like dark, empty tracts of night, and pursuing him as something more than phantoms, if he does not tear himself free from them.

  244

  To the several perversities of the day a man should always oppose only the great masses of universal history.

  245

  No one can live much with children without finding that they always react to any outward influence upon them.

  246

  With any specially childish nature the reaction is even passionate, while its action is energetic.

  247

  That is why children’s lives are a series of refined judgments, not to say prejudices; and to efface a rapid but partial perception in order to make way for a more general one, time is necessary. To bear this in mind is one of the teacher’s greatest duties.

  248

  Friendship can
only be bred in practice and be maintained by practice. Affection, nay, love itself, is no help at all to friendship. True, active, productive friendship consists in keeping equal pace in life: in my friend approving my aims, while I approve his, and in thus moving forwards together steadfastly, however much our way of thought and life may vary.

  V

  249

  In the world people take a man at his own estimate; but he must estimate himself at something. Disagreeableness is more easily tolerated than insignificance.

  250

  You can force anything on society so long as it has no sequel.

  251

  We do not learn to know men if they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are.

  252

  That we have many criticisms to make on those who visit us, and that, as soon as they depart, we pass no very amiable judgment upon them, seems to me almost natural; for we have, so to speak, a right to measure them by our own standard. Even intelligent and fair-minded men hardly refrain from sharp censure on such occasions.

  253

  But if, on the contrary, we have been in their homes, and have seen them in their surroundings and habits and the circumstances which are necessary and inevitable for them; if we have seen the kind of influence they exert on those around them, or how they behave, it is only ignorance and ill-will that can find food for ridicule in what must appear to us in more than one sense worthy of respect.

  254

  What we call conduct and good manners obtains for us that which otherwise is to be obtained only by force, or not even by force.

  255

  Women’s society is the element of good manners.

  256

  How can the character, the peculiar nature of a man, be compatible with good manners?

  257

  It is through his good manners that a man’s peculiar nature should be made all the more conspicuous. Every one likes distinction, but it should not be disagreeable.

  258

  The most privileged position, in life as in society, is that of an educated soldier. Rough warriors, at any rate, remain true to their character, and as great strength is usually the cover for good nature, we get on with them at need.

  259

  No one is more troublesome than an awkward civilian. As his business is not with anything brutal or coarse, he might be expected to show delicacy of feeling.