"When I consider the narrow limits within..." - Quote by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
When I consider the narrow limits within which our active and inquiring faculties are confined; when I see how all our energies are wasted in providing for mere necessities, which again have no further end than to prolong a wretched existence; and then that all our satisfaction concerning certain subjects of investigation ends in nothing better than a passive resignation... when I consider all this... I am silent.
More by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“Each one of us must carry within the proof of immortality, it cannot be given from outside of us. To be sure, everything in natureis change but behind the change there is something eternal.”
“A noble man is led far by woman's gentle words.[Ger., Ein edler Mann wird durch ein gutes WortDer Frauen weit gefuhrt.]”
“Because everyone uses language to talk, everyone thinks he can talk about language.”
More on Existence
More on Limitations
“I am conscious of my own limitations. That consciousness is my only strength.”
“He is short-sighted who looks only on the path he treads and the wall on which he leans.”
“How pathetically scanty my self-knowledge is compared with, say, my knowledge of my room. There is no such thing as observation of the inner world, as there is of the outer world.”