Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes About Sorrow

• Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Sympathy, Destiny, Joy

• No doubt you are right... there would be far less suffering amongst mankind if men... did not employ their imaginations so assiduously in recalling the memory of past sorrow, instead of bearing their present lot with equanimity.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Memories, Past, Men

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2006). “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, p.1, Mondial

• Alas! sorrow from happiness is oft evolved.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Sorrow, Alas

  "The Natural Daughter". Play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, II. 3. 17, 1803.

• Who never ate his bread in sorrow, Who never spent the darksome hours Weeping, and watching for the morrow,- He knows you not, ye heavenly Powers.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Sorrow, Bread, Hours

  'Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre' (1795-6) bk. 2, ch. 13 (translated by Carlyle)

• Alas, I have studied philosophy, the law as well as medicine, and to my sorrow, theology; studied them well with ardent zeal, yet here I am, a wretched fool, no wiser than I was before.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Philosophy, Medicine, Here I Am

  Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (2011). “Faust”, p.31, Bantam Classics

• Rash combat oft immortalizes man; if he should fall, he is renowned in song; but after-ages reckon not the ceaseless tears which the forsaken woman sheds. Poets tell us not of the many nights consumed in weeping, or of the dreary days wherein her anguished soul vainly yearns to call her loved one back.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Song, Fall, Night

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