30 Nov The Wisdom of Goethe 1 (JOHANN PETER ECKERMANN)
I have ever been esteemed one of Fortune’s chiefest favourites; nor will I complain or find fault with the course my life has taken. Yet, truly, there has been nothing but toil and care; and I may say that, in all my seventy-five years, I have never had a month of genuine comfort. It has been the perpetual rolling of a stone, which I have always had to raise anew. My annals will render clear what I now say. The claims upon my activity, both from within and without, were too numerous.
Sunday, January 25, 1824
My real happiness was my poetic meditation and production. But how was this disturbed, limited, and hindered by my external position! Had I been able to abstain more from public business, and to live more in solitude, I should have been happier, and should have accomplished much more as a poet. But, soon after my ‘Goetz’ and ‘Werther,’ that saying of a sage was verified for me—‘If you do anything for the sake of the world, it will take good care that you shall not do it a second time.
Tuesday January 27, 1824
Could we perfect human nature, we might also expect a perfect state of things; but, as it is, there will always be a wavering hither and thither; one part must suffer while the other is at ease, envy and egotism will be always at work like bad demons, and party strife will be without end.
Wednesday, February 25, 1824
Conversations Of Goethe
Johann Peter Eckermann
