Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes on Time
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's reflections on time, gathered here, set the fleeting moment against what endures. Goethe distinguished sharply between the dazzling and the genuine: what dazzles, he wrote, for the moment spends its spirit, while what is genuine shall posterity inherit, so that only the authentic survives the passage of time. He also saw human life as caught up from the first in an unceasing exchange, observing that we are either debtors or creditors before we have had time to look round. His counsel, marked here as attributed, was to keep moving with time rather than against it, since whoever does not move forward goes backward. Drawn from Faust, the Elective Affinities, and his maxims, these passages present time as a current that dissolves the merely brilliant while carrying the genuine forward.
Quotes
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Attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
“He who moves not forward, goes backward.”
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“Tell me you stones, O speak, you towering palaces ! Streets, say a word! Spirit of this place, are you dumb? All things are alive in your sacred walls Eternal Rome, it's only for me all is still.”
Roman Elegies(1789) | Elegy 1 -
“What dazzles, for the Moment spends its spirit: What's genuine, shall Posterity inherit.”
Faust, Part 1(1808) | Prelude on the Stage -
“Everything that liberates our mind without at the same time imparting self-control is pernicious.”
Maxims and Reflections(1833) | Maxim 504, trans. Stopp Variant translation: Everything that emancipates the spirit without giving us control over ourselves is harmful. -
“The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through all eternity.”
Elective Affinities(1809) | Bk. I, Ch. 9 -
“Let us live in as small a circle as we will, we are either debtors or creditors before we have had time to look round.”
Elective Affinities(1809) | Bk. II, Ch. 4