Johann Wolfgang Goethe
A master of poetry, drama, and the novel, German writer and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe spent 50 years on his two-part dramatic poem
Faust
, published in 1808 and 1832, also conducted scientific research in various fields, notably botany, and held several governmental positions.
George Eliot called him "Germany's greatest man of letters... and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Works span the fields of literature, theology, and humanism.
People laud this magnum opus as one of the peaks of world literature. Other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the
Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
and the epistolary novel
The Sorrows of Young Werther
.
With this key figure of German literature, the movement of Weimar classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries coincided with Enlightenment, sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang, and Romanticism. The author of the scientific text
Theory of Colours
, he influenced Darwin with his focus on plant morphology. He also long served as the privy councilor ("Geheimrat") of the duchy of Weimar.
Goethe took great interest in the literatures of England, France, Italy, classical Greece, Persia, and Arabia and originated the concept of Weltliteratur ("world literature"). Despite his major, virtually immeasurable influence on German philosophy especially on the generation of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, he expressly and decidedly refrained from practicing philosophy in the rarefied sense.
Influence spread across Europe, and for the next century, his works inspired much music, drama, poetry and philosophy. Many persons consider Goethe the most important writer in the German language and one of the most important thinkers in western culture as well. Early in his career, however, he wondered about painting, perhaps his true vocation; late in his life, he expressed the expectation that people ultimately would remember his work in optics.
“E poi, caro amico, questo mio desiderio di cambiare non è forse un'insofferenza interiore che mi perseguiterà ovunque io vada?”
“Il malumore e la pigrizia sono in tutto simili, perché il malumore è una specie di pigrizia. A questa siamo portati per natura, e tuttavia se troviamo la forza per reagire ecco che il lavoro diviene agevole e l'attività un vero piacere.”
“I più trascorrono la maggior parte del tempo lavorando per vivere, e quel po' di libertà che rimane loro li spaventa a tal punto che ricorrono a ogni mezzo per liberarsene. Oh destino degli uomini!”
“Mio caro, in questa banale faccenda ho nuovamente verificato che a questo mondo l'incomprensione e la pigrizia causano più errori dell'astuzia e della malvagità. O perlomeno, queste ultime sono di certo più rare.”
“Es ist natürlich wenn uns ein Unglück, oder etwas Schreckliches im Vergnügen überrascht, dass es stärkere Eindrücke auf uns macht als sonst, teils wegen des Gegensatzes, der sich so lebhaft empfinden lässt, teils und noch mehr, weil unsere Sinne einmal der Fühlbarkeit geöffnet sind und also desto schneller einen Eindruck annehmen.”
“U bezit zoveel verstand, zoveel kennis, zoveel talenten waar u plezier aan kunt beleven! Verman u toch! Geef het toch op, die treurige verknochtheid aan iemand die u er alleen maar om kan beklagen.”
“Todo comienzo tiene su encanto.”
“Ljudska narav ima svoje granice: ona moze podnositi radost, patnju, boli, sve do odredjene mjere, ali propada cim je ta mjera prevrsena. Nije tu, dakle, pitanje je li neko slab ili jak, nego moze li izdrzati mjeru svoje patnje, bila ona moralna ili tjelesna”