Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Light Quotations

Someday perhaps the inner light will shine forth from us, and then we'll need no other light

Names are but noise and smoke, Obscuring heavenly light.

Were the eye not of the sun, How could we behold the light? If God's might and ours were not as one, How could His work enchant our sight?

Every decided colour does a certain violence to the eye, and forces the organ to opposition.

Love has the tendency of pressing together all the lights - all the rays emitted from the beloved object by the burning-glass of fantasy, - into one focus, and making of them one radiant sun without any spots.

Someday someone will write a pathology of experimental physics and bring to light all those swindles which subvert our reason, beguile our judgement and, what is worse, stand in the way of any practical progress. The phenomena must be freed once and for all from their grim torture chamber of empiricism, mechanism, and dogmatism; they must be brought before the jury of man's common sense.

Colors are light's suffering and joy

I am part of the part that once was everything, Part of the darkness which gave birth to light… Mephistopheles, from Faust.

Colors are the deeds/ and sufferings of light.

Light has called forth one organ to become its like, and thus the eye is formed by the light and for the light so that the inner light may emerge to meet the outer light.

Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night, nearer yet and nearer rising to the light - light, serene and holy where my soul may rest, purified and lowly, sanctified and blest.

Where there is much light, the shadows are deepest. [Ger., Wo viel Licht is, ist starker Schatten.]

Lamps make oil-spots and candles need snuffing; it is only the light of heaven that shines pure and leaves no stain.

What reason would grope for in vain, spontaneous impulse ofttimes achieves at a stroke, with light and pleasureful guidance.

A vi'let on the meadow grew, That no one saw, that no one knew, It was a modest flower. A shepherdess pass'd by that way-- Light footed, pretty and so gay; That way she came, Softly warbling forth her lay.

There is no trifling with nature; it is always true, grave, and severe; it is always in the light, and the faults and errors fall to our share. It defies incompetency, but reveals its secrets to the competent, the truthful, and the pure.

Mysterious in the light of day, nature retains her veil, despite our clamours: That which she does not willingly display cannot be wrenched from her with levers, screws and hammers.

Words are mere sound and smoke, dimming the heavenly light.

The light is there, and colors surround us. However, if there were no light nor colors in our own eye, we wouldn't perceive such things outside of us.

Generally speaking, an author's style is a faithful copy of his mind. If you would write a lucid style, let there first be light in your own mind; and if you would write a grand style, you ought to have a grand character.

Pain and pleasure, good and evil, come to us from unexpected sources. It is not there where we have gathered up our brightest hopes, that the dawn of happiness breaks. It is not there where we have glanced our eye with affright, that we find the deadliest gloom. What should this teach us? To bow to the great and only Source of light, and live humbly and with confiding resignation.

Where the light is brightest, the shadows are deepest.

Someday perhaps the inner light will shine forth from us, and the we'll need no other light.

There is strong shadow where there is much light.

No prudent antagonist thinks light of his adversaries.