“Medicine, and Law, and Philosophy -You've worked your way through every school,Even, God help you, Theology,And sweated at it like a fool.Why labour at it any more?You're no wiser now than you were before.You're Master of Arts, and Doctor too,And for ten years all you've been able to doIs lead your students a fearful danceThrough a maze of error and ignorance.And all this misery goes to showThere's nothing we can ever know.Oh yes you're brighter than all those relics,Professors and Doctors, scribblers and clerics,No doubts or scruples to trouble you,Defying hell, and the Devil too.But there's no joy in self-delusion;Your search for truth ends in confusion.Don't imagine your teaching will ever raiseThe minds of men or change their ways.And as for worldly wealth, you have none -What honour or glory have you won?A dog could stand this life no more.And so I've turned to magic lore;The spirit message of this art Some secret knowledge might impart.No longer shall I sweat to teach What always lay beyond my reach;I'll know what makes the world revolve,Its mysteries resolve,No more in empty words I'll deal -Creation's wellsprings I'll reveal!”

“Father! Whom I do not know! Father! who filled all my soul and who has now turned His countenance away from me! Call me to You! Be silent no longer! Your silence will not stay this thirsting soul—and could a person, a father, be angry whose son, unexpectedly returning, threw himself on his neck and cried: Father! I have come back! Don’t be angry that I am breaking off the travels that you meant for me to endure longer. The world is everywhere the same, in effort and work, reward and joy, but what is that to me? I am only happy where you are, and it is before your countenance that I want to suffer and enjoy.—And You, dear heavenly Father, would turn him away from You?”

“If there is confusion in your head and in your heart, what more do you want! A man who no longer loves and no longer errs should have himself buried straight away.”

“God save you, my brethren, with all your -isms and schisms! I am a citizen of the world, and a man of Weimer. I have established myself by culture in this choice society; and if anyone knows a better place, let him go to it.”

“If you have a great work in your head, nothing else thrives near it; all other thoughts are repelled, and the pleasure of life itself is for the time lost.”

“And when I look around the apartment where I now am,—when I see Charlotte’s apparel lying before me, and Albert’s writings, and all those articles of furniture which are so familiar to me, even to the very inkstand which I am using,—when I think what I am to this family—everything. My friends esteem me; I often contribute to their happiness, and my heart seems as if it could not beat without them; and yet—if I were to die, if I were to be summoned from the midst of this circle, would they feel—or how long would they feel—the void which my loss would make in their existence? How long! Yes, such is the frailty of man, that even there, where he has the greatest consciousness of his own being, where he makes the strongest and most forcible impression, even in the memory, in the heart of his beloved, there also he must perish,—vanish,—and that quickly.I could tear open my bosom with vexation to think how little we are capable of influencing the feelings of each other. No one can communicate to me those sensations of love, joy, rapture, and delight which I do not naturally possess; and though my heart may glow with the most lively affection, I cannot make the happiness of one in whom the same warmth is not inherent.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!I possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. I possess so much, but without her I have nothing.One hundred times have I been on the point of embracing her. Heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it! And laying hold is the most natural of human instincts. Do not children touch everything they see? And I!Witness, Heaven, how often I lie down in my bed with a wish, and even a hope, that I may never awaken again! And in the morning, when I open my eyes, I behold the sun once more, and am wretched. If I were whimsical, I might blame the weather, or an acquaintance, or some personal disappointment, for my discontented mind; and then this insupportable load of trouble would not rest entirely upon myself. But, alas! I feel it too sadly; I am alone the cause of my own woe, am I not? Truly, my own bosom contains the source of all my pleasure. Am I not the same being who once enjoyed an excess of happiness, who at every step saw paradise open before him, and whose heart was ever expanded towards the whole world? And this heart is now dead; no sentiment can revive it. My eyes are dry; and my senses, no more refreshed by the influence of soft tears, wither and consume my brain. I suffer much, for I have lost the only charm of life: that active, sacred power which created worlds around me,—it is no more. When I look from my window at the distant hills, and behold the morning sun breaking through the mists, and illuminating the country around, which is still wrapped in silence, whilst the soft stream winds gently through the willows, which have shed their leaves; when glorious Nature displays all her beauties before me, and her wondrous prospects are ineffectual to extract one tear of joy from my withered heart,—I feel that in such a moment I stand like a reprobate before heaven, hardened, insensible, and unmoved. Oftentimes do I then bend my knee to the earth, and implore God for the blessing of tears, as the desponding labourer in some scorching climate prays for the dews of heaven to moisten his parched corn.”

“Once more I am a wanderer, a pilgrim, through the world. But what else are you?”