"When we see the many grave-stones which..." - Quote by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
When we see the many grave-stones which have fallen in, which have been defaced by the footsteps of the congregation, which lie buried under the ruins of the churches, that have themselves crumbled together over them; we may fancy the life after death to be as a second life, into which man enters in the figure, or the picture or the inscription, and lives longer there than when he was really alive. But this figure also, this second existence, dies out too, sooner or later. Time will not allow himself to be cheated of his rights with the monuments of men or with themselves.
More by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“No one can take from us the joy of the first becoming aware of something, the so-called discovery. But if we also demand the honor, it can be utterly spoiled for us, for we are usually not the first. What does discovery mean, and who can say that he has discovered this or that? After all it's pure idiocy to brag about priority; for it's simply unconscious conceit, not to admit frankly that one is a plagiarist.”
“Who can think wise or stupid things at all that were not thought already in the past.”
“True love is love that stays constant for ever, whatever it's fortune; whether requited or scored, filled or sent empty away.”
More on Mortality
“the brut first knows death when it dies, but man draws consciously nearer to it every hour that he lives; and this makes his life at times a questionable good even to him who has not recognised this character of constant anaihilation in the whole of life.”
“Everyone desires long life, not one old age.”
“The gloomy shade of death.”
More on Time
“I fell in love with her when we were together, then fell deeper in love with her in the years we were apart.”
“The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
“Long and long has the grass been growing,Long and long has the rain been falling,Long has the globe been rolling round.”