the highest wisdom
“This is the highest wisdom that I own,
The best that mankind ever knew:
Freedom and life are earned by those alone
Who conquer them each day anew.”
—Goethe, Faust, 1790; translated from the German by Walter Kaufman, 1961.
To the tower sworn
“To see I was born,
To look is my call,
To the tower sworn,
I delight in all.”
—Goethe, Faust, 1790; translated from the German by Walter Kaufman, 1961.
Employ the sun and moon
“You know, the stage in Germany
Lets each do what he wants to do;
Tonight, therefore, I say to you,
Do not spare our machinery.
Employ the sun and moon, do not hold back!
Use all the stars we have in stock;”
—Goethe, Faust, 1790; translated from the German by Walter Kaufman, 1961.
the darkness
“I am part of the part that once was everything,
Part of the darkness which gave birth to light,
That haughty light which envies mother night
Her ancient rank and place and would be king’
Yet it does not succeed: however it contend,
It sticks to bodies in the end.
It streams from bodies, it lends bodies beauty,
A body won’t let it progress;
So it will not take long, I guess,
And with the bodies it will perish, too.”
—Goethe, Faust, 1790; translated from the German by Walter Kaufman, 1961.
life’s golden tree
“Gray, my dear friend, is every theory,
And green alone life’s golden tree.”
—Goethe, Faust, 1790; translated from the German by Walter Kaufman, 1961.
Color on color
“[L]ight descends, the deeps, too, are unsealed,
And I see twigs and branches growing
From the ravine where they could sleep concealed.
Color on color rises from the ground
Where dewy leaves and blossoms stand revealed,
And I behold a paradise around.”
—Goethe, Faust, 1790; translated from the German by Walter Kaufman, 1961.
The rainbow
“The rainbow mirrors human love and strife;
Consider it and you will better know:
In many-hued reflection we have life.”
—Goethe, Faust, 1790; translated from the German by Walter Kaufman, 1961.
prisms of no color
“Darkened rolling figures move thru prisms of no color.
Hand in hand, they walk the night,
But never know each other.”
—The Monkees, Daily Nightly, words and music by Michael Nesmith, 1967.
the silvery tinkling of half a hundred glasses
“The October sun shed a light like gold dust against the windows, but inside the air was all silver: silver of champagne and gin, silver of spoons, of the bars the young girls wore, tucked in their hair, and the silvery tinkling of half a hundred glasses, a gay and flimsy tintinnabulation.”
—William Styron, Lie Down in Darkness, 1951.
fading, dusty stars
“It was very quiet on the water, and chilly, and the moon, hung like a pale lamp above the rim of the bay, seemed to shed only the coolest light over a crowd of fading, dusty stars.”
—William Styron, Lie Down in Darkness, 1951.