mono
05-01-2006, 12:47 AM
Greetings, everyone!
I recently finished reading another piece of literature by one of my favorite authors, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, entitled The Sorrows Of Young Werther. Since many of Goethe's works seem saturated with bits of wisdom enclosed in quotes, I thought to share a few, translated from German by Michael Hulse.
As opposed to some of Goethe's other works, I thought The Sorrows Of Young Werther, as its title states, increasingly more full of sorrow, yet still, truly, a literary masterpiece not worth overlooking.
Enjoy.
. . . misunderstandings and lethargy perhaps lead to more complications in the affairs of the world than trickery and wickedness. At least, the two latter are surely less common.
. . . he who supposes he must keep his distance from what they call the rabble, to preserve the respect due to him, is as much to blame as a coward who hides from his enemy for fear of being beaten.
The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it. What a thing our human destiny is!
All our learned teachers and educators are agreed that children do not know why they want what they want; but no one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genuine motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod . . . they are the happiest who, like children, live for the present moment.
A man shaped by the rules will never produce anything tasteless or bad, just as a citizen who observes laws and decorum will never be an unbearable neighbour or an out-and-out villain; and yet on the other hand, say what you please, the rules will destroy the true feeling of Nature and its true expression!
If something distressing or terrible surprises us in our pleasures, it naturally makes a more powerful impression on us than at other times, partly because the contrast affects us very keenly, and partly and more importantly because our senses have been opened to feelings and we are more susceptible to impressions.
Without doubt, the only thing that makes Man's life on earth essential and necessary is love.
There is not one moment that does not wear you away, and those who are done to you, nor any one moment when you yourself are not a destroyer, of necessity: the most innocent of walks costs thousands of wretched grubs their lives, one step wrecks what the ant laboriously built and treads a little world into an ignominious grave underfoot.
. . . life's blossoms are but an illusion! How many pass away without leaving a trace behind, how few of them bring forth fruit, and how few of those fruit grow ripe!
. . . since we are so constituted as to be forever comparing ourselves with others and our surroundings with ourselves, our happiness or misery depends on the things in our environment; and, this being so, nothing is more dangerous than solitude.
We often feel that we lack something, and seem to see that very quality in someone else, promptly attributing all our qualities to him too, and a kind of ideal contentment as well. And so the happy mortal is a model of complete perfection - which we have ourselves created.
All men are disappointed in their hopes and cheated out of their expectations..
I recently finished reading another piece of literature by one of my favorite authors, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, entitled The Sorrows Of Young Werther. Since many of Goethe's works seem saturated with bits of wisdom enclosed in quotes, I thought to share a few, translated from German by Michael Hulse.
As opposed to some of Goethe's other works, I thought The Sorrows Of Young Werther, as its title states, increasingly more full of sorrow, yet still, truly, a literary masterpiece not worth overlooking.
Enjoy.
. . . misunderstandings and lethargy perhaps lead to more complications in the affairs of the world than trickery and wickedness. At least, the two latter are surely less common.
. . . he who supposes he must keep his distance from what they call the rabble, to preserve the respect due to him, is as much to blame as a coward who hides from his enemy for fear of being beaten.
The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it. What a thing our human destiny is!
All our learned teachers and educators are agreed that children do not know why they want what they want; but no one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genuine motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod . . . they are the happiest who, like children, live for the present moment.
A man shaped by the rules will never produce anything tasteless or bad, just as a citizen who observes laws and decorum will never be an unbearable neighbour or an out-and-out villain; and yet on the other hand, say what you please, the rules will destroy the true feeling of Nature and its true expression!
If something distressing or terrible surprises us in our pleasures, it naturally makes a more powerful impression on us than at other times, partly because the contrast affects us very keenly, and partly and more importantly because our senses have been opened to feelings and we are more susceptible to impressions.
Without doubt, the only thing that makes Man's life on earth essential and necessary is love.
There is not one moment that does not wear you away, and those who are done to you, nor any one moment when you yourself are not a destroyer, of necessity: the most innocent of walks costs thousands of wretched grubs their lives, one step wrecks what the ant laboriously built and treads a little world into an ignominious grave underfoot.
. . . life's blossoms are but an illusion! How many pass away without leaving a trace behind, how few of them bring forth fruit, and how few of those fruit grow ripe!
. . . since we are so constituted as to be forever comparing ourselves with others and our surroundings with ourselves, our happiness or misery depends on the things in our environment; and, this being so, nothing is more dangerous than solitude.
We often feel that we lack something, and seem to see that very quality in someone else, promptly attributing all our qualities to him too, and a kind of ideal contentment as well. And so the happy mortal is a model of complete perfection - which we have ourselves created.
All men are disappointed in their hopes and cheated out of their expectations..