Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes About Water

• We must not hope to be mowers, And to gather the ripe gold ears, Unless we have first been sowers And water the furrows with tears. It is not just as we take it, This mystical world of ours, Life's field will yield as we make it A harvest of thorns or of flowers.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Flower, Yield

• Wind is the loving Wooer of waters; Wind blends together Billows all-foaming. Spirit of man, Thou art like unto water! Fortune of man, Thou art like unto wind!

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Men, Clouds

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Edgar Alfred BOWRING (1853). “The Poems of Goethe, Translated in the Original Metres, with a Sketch of Goethe's Life. By E. A. Bowring”, p.220

• Modern poets mix too much water with their ink.
  [Ger., Neuere Poeten thun viel Wasser in die Tinte.]

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Water, Ink, Too Much

• All is born of water; all is sustained by water.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Nature, Travel, Water

• Water its living strength first shows, When obstacles its course oppose.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lakes, Sea, Fishing

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Edgar Alfred BOWRING (1853). “The Poems of Goethe, Translated in the Original Metres, with a Sketch of Goethe's Life. By E. A. Bowring”, p.331

• Modern poets add a lot of water to their ink.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Water, Poetry, Ink

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, W. B. Rönnfeldt (1898*). “Goethe's Criticisms, Reflections, and Maxims”

• The soul of man is like to water; from Heaven it cometh, to Heaven it riseth
  And then returning to earth, forever alternating.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Water, Forever

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1882). “The Poems of Goethe”, Richard West

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