Like Hamlet, Goethe’s Faust offers a wide panorama of scenes from the vulgar to the sublime, with passages of wondrous poetry that can be sensed even through the veil of translation. And it also preserves...

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

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...

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

Primary Epic is great, but not with the greatness of the later kind. In Homer, its greatness lies in the human and personal tragedy built up against this background of meaningless flux. It is all...

In the beginning of the eighteenth century, De Maillet made the first serious attempt to apply the doctrine [of evolution] to the living world. In the latter part of it, Erasmus Darwin, Goethe, and Lamarck...

Someone once told me people write down stories because they would like to forget, and those who read are those who would like to remember. Maybe I’m not ready to forget, and maybe you’re not...

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...

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...

In fact a favourite problem of Tyndall is—Given the molecular forces in a mutton chop, deduce Hamlet or Faust therefrom. He is confident that the Physics of the Future will solve this easily.

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

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.

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...

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...

Seaside Studies,” will perceive that science excites poetry rather than extinguishes it. And whoever will contemplate the life of Goethe will see that the poet and the man of science can co-exist in equal activity....

Ältere Bekanntschaften und Freundschaften haben vor neuen hauptsächlich das voraus, dass man sich einander schon viel verziehen hat.

You spend too much time on ephemeras. The majority of modern books are merely wavering reflections of the present. They disappear very quickly. You should read more old books. The classics. Goethe. What is merely...

Ah, gençliğimin mabedi o sevgili nerelerde! Kaybolacak idiyse onu ne diye tanıdım ben?.. Kendi kendime: Çılgınsın! diyorum, artık bulunması olanaksız bir şey arıyorsun!Ama ben ona, o sevgiliye bir zamanlar sarılmıştım. Kalbinin atışlarını duymuştum. Yüce yaradılışı...

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.

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

Tú eres tu propia barrera… sáltala desde adentro.

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

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

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