Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes on Death
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe reflected on death within a larger sense of life's brevity and continual transformation, and the quotes gathered here, several preserved with their German originals, express that. A recurring note is the shortness of a human life set against the length of its tasks, caught in the maxim from Wilhelm Meister that art is long while life is short, judgement difficult and opportunity fleeting. Goethe also linked the readiness to live with the readiness to risk and to suffer, in lines holding that nothing is gained by one who ventures nothing, and that those who have never eaten their bread with tears do not know the heavenly powers. In his West-Eastern Diwan he framed dying as a final submission to God's will. Drawn from his poetry and novels, these passages set death within Goethe's vision of a brief and demanding life.
Quotes
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“The folly! Every man in turn would still His own peculiar notions magnify! If Islam mean submission to God’s will, May we all live in Islam, and all die.”
West–östlicher Divan(West–Eastern Diwan)(1819/1827) | The West–Eastern Divan , translated by Edward Dowden, VI. Book of Maxims, p. 86. -
“Wer nichts wagt, gerwinnt nichts. Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen aß, Wer nie die kummervollen Nächte Auf seinem Bette weinend saß, Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte.”
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre(Apprenticeship)(1786–1830) | Nothing venture, nothing gain. Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate, Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours Weeping upon his bed has sate, He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers. Bk. II, Ch. 13; translation -
“Die Kunst ist lang, das Leben kurz, das Urteil schwierig, die Gelegenheit flüchtig.”
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre(Apprenticeship)(1786–1830) | Art is long, life short; judgment difficult, opportunity transient. Bk. VII, Ch. 9 Cf. Hippocrates , Ars longa vita brevis , Aphorisms 1:1 -
“Es gibt kein äußeres Zeichen der Höflichkeit, das nicht einen tiefen sittlichen Grund hätte. Die rechte Erziehung wäre, welche dieses Zeichen und den Grund zugleich überlieferte.”
Elective Affinities(1809) | There is no outward mark of politeness that does not have a profound moral reason. The right education would be that which taught the outward mark and the moral reason together. Bk. II, Ch. 5, R. J. H -
“Wenn die Menschen recht schlecht werden, haben sie keinen Anteil mehr als die Schadenfreude.”
Maxims and Reflections(1833) | People have to become really bad before they care for nothing but mischief, and delight in it. -
“Man sagt: „Studire, Künstler, die Natur!” Es ist aber keine Kleinigkeit, aus dem Gemeinen das Edle, aus der Unform das Schöne zu entwickeln.”
Maxims and Reflections(1833) | People say, “Artist, study nature!” But it is no small matter to develop what is noble out of what is common, beauty out of what lacks form. Maxim 191, trans. Stopp