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: 1776

"I am provoked at this natural incapacity of conveying my sentiments to you; words are but a cloak, or rather a clog, to our ideas; there should be no curtain before the hearts of friends; and the longing I have ever felt for an intuitive converse, is to me a strong argument for a future state."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1776

"Alarmed as all my passions were, her gentle accents vibrated upon my heart, and calmed each throbbing pulse."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1776

"I have been long labouring to consider this idol of my heart as misers do their hidden treasure; though hopeless of enjoying it, yet while I thought 'twas safe, I could not look upon myself undone."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1776

"My eyes are closed to beauty; I only feel its power, when I turn them inward, and gaze upon the image in my heart."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1776

"O Charles! the treasures of my Lucy's mind have been concealed till now; beneath the mask of gaiety she hid the tenderest, noblest feelings of the heart, the justest sentiments, and the most perfect female understanding."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1776

"Can you, my once dear friend, without abhorrence, think of her who robbed you of a brother, and was the unhappy cause his pure and spotless soul was stained with blood?"

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)