The Sorrows of Young Werther Quotes

“The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“No one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genuine motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“Sometimes I don't understand how another can love her, is allowed to love her, since I love her so completely myself, so intensely, so fully, grasp nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her!”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“I wait for the morning of my tears”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Les souffrances du jeune Werther

“What a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it!”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“Was ich weiß, kann jeder wissen. Mein Herz hab' ich allein.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“أعدك يا صديقتي العزيزة أن أصلح من شأني, وأستمتع بالحاضر, وأطوي صفحة الماضي.
ولا شك أنك على صواب يا خير صديق أذ تقولين أنه لخير للبشر لو كفوا عن تقليب ذكريات الاحزان الغابرة بخيالهم المتقد, بدلا من تحمل حاضرهم بصبر وطمأنينة, ولكن الله وحده يعلم لماذا جبل الناس على هذا”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, آلام فيرتير

“I am proud of my heart alone, it is the sole source of everything, all our strenght, happiness & misery. All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“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, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“It's true that nothing in this world makes us so necessary to others as the affection we have for them.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“How often do I lull my seething blood to rest, for you have never seen anything so unsteady, so uncertain, as this heart.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“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, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“Is this the destiny of man? Is he only happy before he has acquired his reason or after he has lost it?”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“Every day I observe more and more the folly of judging of others by ourselves; and I have so much trouble with myself, and my own heart is in such constant agitation, that I am well content to let others pursue their own course, if they only allow me the same privilege.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“We often feel that we lack something, and seem to see that very quality in someone else, promptly attributing all our own qualities to him too, and a kind of ideal contentment as well. And so the happy mortal is a model of complete perfection--which we have ourselves created.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“It is ever true that he who does nothing for others, does nothing for himself." ~ Goethe”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Werther

“سوء الفهم والاهمال تنجم عنهما من المساوئ و الأضرار أكثر مما ينجم عادة عن سوء النية و الرغبة في الشر و الالتواء”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, آلام فيرتير

“إننى وحيد تماما. وأجد الحياة ممتعة جدا فى هذه البقعة التى انشئت للأرواح المشابهة لروحى. إننى سعيد جدا ومستغرق فى الإحساس بالوجود الهادئ.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, آلام فرتر

“Distance... is like futurity. A dim vastness is spread before our souls; the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision... But alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant 'there' becomes the present 'here,' all is changed; we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“It is in vain that a man of sound mind and cool temper understands the condition of such a wretched being... He can no more communicate his own wisdom to him than a healthy man can instil his strength into the invalid by whose bedside he is seated.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“He values my understanding and talents more highly than my heart, but I am proud of the latter only. It is the sole source of everything of our strength, happiness, and misery. All the knowledge I possess every one else can acquire, but my heart is exclusively my own.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“I was oppressed with the sensations I then felt; I sunk under the weight of them.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“When she sees the leaves fall, they raise no other idea in her mind than that winter is approaching.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“I treat my heart like a sick child and gratify its every fancy”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“How many kings are governed by their ministers, how many ministers by their secretaries? Who, in such cases, is really the chief?”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“Would you require a wretched being, whose life is slowly wasting under a lingering disease, to despatch himself at once by the stroke of a dagger? Does not the very disorder which consumes his strength deprive him of the courage to effect his deliverance?”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“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, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“Must it ever be thus-that the source of our happiness must also be the fountain of our misery? The full and ardent sentiment which animated my heart with the love of nature, overwhelming me with a torrent of delight, and which brought all paradise before me, has now become an insupportable torment, a demon which perpetually pursues and harrasses me.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“I thank you, Wilhelm, for your heartfelt sympathy, for your well-intentioned advice, but beg you to be quiet. Let me stick it out. Blessedly exhausted as I am, I have strength enough to carry through. I honor religion, you know that, I feel it is a staff for many weary souls, refreshment for many a one who is pining away. But--can it be, must it be, the same thing for everyone? If you look at the great world, you see thousands for whom it wasn't, thousands for whom it will not be the same, preached or unpreached, and must it then be the same for me? Does not the son of God Himself say that those would be around Him whom the Father had given Him? But if I am not given? If the Father wants to keep me for Himself, as my heart tells me?--I beg you, do not misinterpret this, do not see mockery in these innocent words. What I am laying before you is my whole soul; otherwise I would rather have kept silent, as I do not like to lose words over things that everyone knows as little about as I do. What else is it but human destiny to suffer out one's measure, drink up one's cup?--And if the chalice was too bitter for the God from heaven on His human lips, why should I boast and pretend that it tastes sweet to me? And why should I be ashamed in the terrible moment when my entire being trembles between being and nothingness, since the past flashes like lightning above the dark abyss of the future and everything around me is swallowed up, and the world perishes with me?--Is that not the voice of the creature thrown back on itself, failing, trapped, lost, and inexorably tumbling downward, the voice groaning in the inner depths of its vainly upwards-struggling energies: My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me? And if I should be ashamed of the expression, should I be afraid when facing that moment, since it did not escape Him who rolls up heaven like a carpet?”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“And I like those authors best whose scenes describe my own situation in life-- and the friends who are about me whose stories touch me with interest, from resembling my own homely existence.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther