Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"'My good friend,' said I, 'whatever is the education of a man, whatever is his understanding, still he is a man, and the little reason that he possesses, either does not act at all, or acts very feebly, when the passions are let loose, or rather when the boundaries of human nature close in upon ...

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)

Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"My sensations change with the rapidity of lightning."

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)

Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"But this heart is now dead, dead to all sentiment: my eyes are dry, and my senses, no longer refreshed by soft tears, wither away, and perish, and consume my brain."

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)

Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"And yet I wish--Oh! my friend, 'tis like drawing a curtain before my heart--only to taste this felicity, and die and expiate my crimes.--My crimes!"

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)

Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"Every step which wrings his feet in unbeaten paths, is a drop of balm to his soul, and each night brings new relief to his heart."

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)

Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"Soon as I close my eyes, here in this brain, where all my nerves are concentred, her dark eyes are imprinted. Here--I don't know how to describe it:--but if I shut my eyes, hers are immediately before me like a sea, like a precipice, and they occupy all the fibres of my head."

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)

Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"A secret sympathy had attached her to him from their first acquaintance; and now, after so long an intimacy, after passing through so many different scenes, the impression was engraved on her mind for ever."

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)

Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"The whole force of these words fell like a stroke of thunder on the heart of the unfortunate Werter."

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)

Date: December 10, 1774; 1775

"The mind, or genius has been compared to a spark of fire, which is smothered by a heap of fewel, and prevented from blazing into a flame: This simile which is made use of, by the younger Pliny, may be easily mistaken for argument or proof."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: December 10, 1774; 1775

"There is no danger of the mind's being over-burthened with knowledge, or the genius extinguished by any addition of images; on the contrary, these acquisitions may be as well, perhaps better, be compared, if comparisons signified any thing in reasoning, to the supply of living embers, which will...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)