That the life of Man is but a dream has been sensed by many a one, and I too am never free of the feeling.
Once we are lost unto ourselves, everything else is lost to us.
Can we never take pleasure in nature without having recourse to art?
Those only obtain love who seek it not.
Man needs only a small patch of earth for his pleasures, and a smaller one still to rest beneath.
He remarked as much to Charlotte on his return, and she was inclined to agree with him. ‘As life draws us along,’ she replied, ’we think we are acting of our own volition, ourselves choosing what we shall do and what we shall enjoy; but when we look more closely we see they are only the intentions and inclinations of the age which we are being compelled to comply with.
Can that be a delusion which makes us happy?
Today I raised your letter hastily to my lips, and it set my teeth on edge.
What provokes me worst of all are our fateful bourgeois distinctions of rank. Of course I know as well as anyone that differences of class are necessary, and that they work greatly to my own advantage: but I wish they would not place obstacles in my way when I might enjoy a little pleasure...
Hast thou, then, nothing more to mention? Com’st ever, thus, with ill intention? Find’st nothing right on earth, eternally? MEPHISTOPHELES No, Lord! I find things, there, still bad as they can be. Man’s misery even to pity moves my nature; I’ve scarce the heart to plague the wretched creature.
But he is so exceedingly accurate, that, if he only fancies he has said a word too precipitate, or too general, or only half true, he never ceases to qualify, to modify, and extenuate, till at last he appears to have said nothing at all.
The wild desires no longer win us, The deeds of passion cease to chain; The love of Man revives within us, The love of God revives again.
Half the night I was on my knees before those flowers, and I regarded them as the pledges of your love; but those impressions grew fainter, and were at length effaced.
I know very well that we are not all equal, nor can be so; but it is my opinion that he who avoids the common people, in order not to lose their respect, is as much to blame as a coward who hides himself from his enemy because he fears defeat. The.
But the man who humbly acknowledges the vanity of all this, who observes with what pleasure the thriving citizen converts his little garden into paradise, and how patiently even the poor man pursues his weary way under his burden, and how all wish equally to behold the light of the sun a little longer – yes, such a man is at peace, and creates his own world within himself;.
The human race is but a monotonous affair. Most of them labour the greater part of their time for mere subsistence; and the scanty portion of freedom which remains to them so troubles them that they use every exertion to get rid of it. Oh, the destiny of man!
You need just what you do not know, and what you really know is worthless.
The question, therefore, is, not whether a man is strong or weak, but whether he is able to endure the measure of his sufferings.
I find by this, how much an author injures his works by altering them, even though they be improved in a poetical point of view. The first impression is readily received. We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavour to efface them.
The world is so waste and empty, when we figure only towns and hills and rivers in it; but to know of some one here and there whom we accord with, who is living on with us, even in silence, – this makes our earthly ball a peopled garden.