Delphi Collected Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe \(Illustrated\) pdfdrive com

FROM OTTILIE’S DIARY

“Any  good  thought  which  we  have  read,  anything  striking  which  we  have

heard, we commonly enter in our diary; but if we would take the trouble, at the

same  time,  to  copy  out  of  our  friends’  letters  the  remarkable  observations,  the

original ideas, the hasty words so pregnant in meaning, which we might find in

them,  we  should  then  be  rich  indeed.  We  lay  aside  letters  never  to  read  them

again, and at last we destroy them out of discretion, and so disappears the most

beautiful, the most immediate breath of life, irrecoverably for ourselves and for

others. I intend to make amends in future for such neglect.”

“So,  then,  once  more  the  old  story  of  the  year  is  being  repeated  over  again.

We  are  come  now,  thank  God,  again  to  its  most  charming  chapter.  The  violets

and the may-flowers are as its superscriptions and its vignettes. It always makes

a  pleasant  impression  on  us  when  we  open  again  at  these  pages  in  the  book  of

life.”

“We  find  fault  with  the  poor,  particularly  with  the  little  ones  among  them,

when they loiter about the streets and beg. Do we not observe that they begin to

work again, as soon as ever there is anything for them to do? Hardly has nature

unfolded  her  smiling  treasures,  than  the  children  are  at  once  upon  her  track  to

open out a calling for themselves. None of them begs any more; they have each a

nosegay  to  offer  you;  they  were  out  and  gathering  it  before  you  had  awakened

out of your sleep, and the supplicating face looks as sweetly at you as the present

which the hand is holding out. No person ever looks miserable who feels that he

has a right to make a demand upon you.”

“How is it that the year sometimes seems so short, and sometimes is so long?

How is it that it is so short when it is passing, and so long as we look back over

it? When I think of the past (and it never comes so powerfully over me as in the

garden), I feel how the perishing and the enduring work one upon the other, and

there is nothing whose endurance is so brief as not to leave behind it some trace

of itself, something in its own likeness.”

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“We  are  able  to  tolerate  the  winter.  We  fancy  that  we  can  extend  ourselves

more freely when the trees are so spectral, so transparent. They are nothing, but

they conceal nothing; but when once the germs and buds begin to show, then we

become impatient for the full foliage to come out, for the landscape to put on its

body, and the tree to stand before us as a form.”

“Everything which is perfect in its kind must pass out beyond and transcend

its  kind.  It  must  be  an  inimitable  something  of  another  and  a  higher  nature.  In

many of its tones the nightingale is only a bird; then it rises up above its class,

and seems as if it would teach every feathered creature what singing really is.”

“A life without love, without the presence of the beloved, is but poor comédie

à tiroir. We draw out slide after slide, swiftly tiring of each, and pushing it back

to make haste to the next. Even what we know to be good and important hangs

but wearily together; every step is an end, and every step is a fresh beginning.”

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