Skip to content

There are occasions ... when all consolation is base and it is a duty to despair.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Elective Affinities (1809)

Es gibt Fälle, ... wo jeder Trost niederträchtig und Verzweiflung Pflicht ist.

Original text (German)

Another quote →

Notes from Wikiquote

Bk. I, Ch. 18, R. J. Hollingdale, trans. (1971), p. 147

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A mathematician is only perfect insofar as he is a perfect man, sensitive to the beauty of truth.

Maxims and Reflections (1833)

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Elective Affinities (1809)

I had rather be Mercury, the smallest among seven [planets], revolving round the sun, than the first among five [moons] revolving round Saturn.

Of freedom and of life he only is deserving
Who every day must conquer them anew.

Faust, Part 2 (1832)

Properly speaking, such work is never finished; one must declare it so when, according to time and circumstances, one has done one's best.

All Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.