Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes About Desire

• Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  "Iphigenia in Tauris". Play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, April 6, 1779.

• I must consider more closely this cycle of good and bad days which I find coursing within myself. Passion, attachment, the urge to action, inventiveness, performance, order all alternate and keep their orbit; cheerfulness, vigor, energy, flexibility and fatigue, serenity as well as desire. Nothing disturbs the cycle for I lead a simple life, but I must still find the time and order in which I rotate.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Bad Day, Passion

• Desire is the presentiment of our inner abilities, and the forerunner of our ultimate accomplishments.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Accomplishment, Desire, Ability

• Whoever, in middle age, attempts to realize the wishes and hopes of his early youth, invariably deceives himself. Each ten years of a man's life has its own fortunes, its own hopes, its own desires.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Funny, Birthday, Meaningful

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.817, Delphi Classics

• Each ten years of a man's life has its own fortunes, its own hopes, its own desires.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Birthday, Men, Years

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.817, Delphi Classics

• While man's desires and aspirations stir he cannot choose but err.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Desire, Aspiration

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1872). “Faust: A Tragedy”, p.203

• A plant is like a self-willed man, out of whom we can obtain all which we desire, if we will only treat him his own way.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Self, Agriculture

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.795, Delphi Classics

• Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in even greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen itself as much as it desires: beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it shines forth in the Gospels, it will not go.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Bible, Shining, Mind

• In happy ignorance, I sighed for a world I did not know, where I hoped to find every pleasure and enjoyment which my heart could desire; and now, on my return from that wide world... how many disappointed hopes and unsuccessful plans have I brought back!

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Ignorance, Heart, Desire

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2016). “THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER (Literary Classics Series): Historical Romance Novel”, p.46, e-artnow

• I examine my own being, and find there a world, but a world rather of imagination and dim desires, than of distinctness and living power. Then everything swims before my senses, and I smile and dream while pursuing my way through the world.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Dream, Imagination, Swim

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2016). “THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER (Literary Classics Series): Historical Romance Novel”, p.7, e-artnow

• It is not given to us to grasp the truth, which is identical with the divine, directly. We perceive it only in reflection, in example and symbol, in singular and related appearances. It meets us as a kind of life which is incomprehensible to us, and yet we cannot free ourselves from the desire to comprehend it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Reflection, Desire, Example

• The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honour or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Wish, Desire

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2006). “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, p.59, Penguin UK

• Vanity is a desire of personal glory, the wish to be appreciated, honoured, and run after, not because of one's personal qualities, merits, and achievements, but because of one's individual existence. At best, therefore, it is a frivolous beauty whim it befits.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Running, Personal Qualities, Vanity

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.134, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• What you desire when young, you have in abundance when old.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Age, Desire, Youth

• Distrust those in whom the desire to punish is strong.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Strong, Desire, Distrust

• Thus I reel from desire to fulfillment and in fulfillment languish for desire.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Desire, Fulfillment, Languish

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1976). “Faust: a tragedy : backgrounds and sources, the author on the drama, contemporary reactions, modern criticism”, W. W. Norton & Company

• The desire to explain what is simple by what is complex, what is easy by what is difficult, is a calamity.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Simple, Desire, Easy

  "Maxims and Reflections". Book by by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, translated by Elisabeth Stopp. Maxim 611, 1998.

• From desire I plunge to its fulfilment, where I long once more for desire.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Long, Desire, Plunge

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