Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes About Suffering

• A great artist... must be shaken by the naked truths that will not be comforted. This divine discontent, this disequilibrium, this state of inner tension is the source of artistic energy.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Artist, Suffering, Energy

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1949). “Truth and Fantasy from My Life”

• You must either conquer and rule or serve and lose, suffer or triumph, be the anvil or the hammer.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Success, War, Suffering

• Man... knows only when he is satisfied and when he suffers, and only his sufferings and his satisfactions instruct him concerning himself, teach him what to seek and what to avoid. For the rest, man is a confused creature; he knows not whence he comes or whither he goes, he knows little of the world, and above all, he knows little of himself.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Confused, Men, Suffering

• No doubt you are right... there would be far less suffering amongst mankind if men... did not employ their imaginations so assiduously in recalling the memory of past sorrow, instead of bearing their present lot with equanimity.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Memories, Past, Men

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2006). “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, p.1, Mondial

• The flowers of life are but visionary. How many pass away and leave no trace behind! How few yield any fruit,--and the fruit itself, how rarely does it ripen! And yet there are flowers enough; and is it not strange, my friend, that we should suffer the little that does really ripen to rot, decay, and perish unenjoyed?

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Flower, Yield, Suffering

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2017). “The Sorrows of Young Werther (English German Edition, illustrated): Die Leiden des jungen Werther (Englisch Deutsch Ausgabe illustriert)”, p.105, Clap Publishing, LLC.

• Colors are the deeds/ and sufferings of light.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Light, Color

• Man can only endure a certain degree of unhappiness; what is beyond that either annihilates him or passes by him and leaves him apathetic

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Suffering, Degrees

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.754, Delphi Classics

• The suffering may be moral or physical; and in my opinion it is just as absurd to call a man a coward who destroys himself, as to call a man a coward who dies of a malignant fever.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Suffering, Coward

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “The Sorrows of Young Werther: Top Classic of German”, p.23, 谷月社

• What is the destiny of man, but to fill up the measure of his sufferings, and to drink his allotted cup of bitterness?

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Destiny, Men, Suffering

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “The Sorrows of Young Werther: Top Classic of German”, p.45, 谷月社

• Does not man lack the force at the very point where he needs it most? And when he soars upward in joy, or sinks down in suffering, is not checked in both, is he not returned again to the dull, cold sphere of awareness, just when he was longing to lose himself in the fullness of the infinite.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Joy, Suffering

  Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1990). “Sammlung”, Burns & Oates

• Say what you will of fortitude, but show me the man who can patiently endure the laughter of fools when they have obtained an advantage over him. 'Tis only when their nonsense is without foundation that one can suffer it without complaint.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Laughter, Men, Suffering

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “The Sorrows of Young Werther: Top Classic of German”, p.36, 谷月社

• Colors are light's suffering and joy

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Light, Color, Joy

• True religion teaches us to reverence what is under us, to recognize humility and poverty, and, despite mockery and disgrace, wretchedness, suffering, and death, as things divine.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Humility, Suffering And Death, Religion

• Ah, how often I've cursed those foolish pages,
  That showed my youthful sufferings to everyone!
  If Werther had been my brother, and I'd killed him,
  His sad ghost could hardly have persecuted me more.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Brother, Suffering, Pages

  "Roman Elegies". Book by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Elegy 2 (First version), 1902.

• Nature does not suffer her veil to be taken from her, and what she does not choose to reveal to the spirit, thou wilt not wrest from her by levers and screws.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Nature, Taken, Science

• It is better for you to suffer an injustice than for the world to be without law. Therefore, let everyone submit to the law.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Law, Suffering, World

• A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for them, and he patiently suffers much for them; but he becomes impatient if he is required to give them up.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Giving, Mind

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.115, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• Thou must (in commanding and winning, or serving and losing, suffering or triumphing) be either anvil or hammer.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Fate, Winning, Suffering

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