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This story published in 1774 is terrible! Just terrible. I couldn’t put the book down! The love between Werther and Charlotte is genuine to be sure. Strong, stupid, selfish, deadly passion.
Thanks be to God I am not a stupid young man any more! These passions are outlived.
I feel the desperation, full of want and desire, something forbidden, a glance, a touch, a smile. Anything! It’s as if we live only to be forsaken by them.
I’m proud to say that I’m beyond the death rattle of passion.
I’ve grown out of this mode.
I’ve been in this man’s place as a youth. All is lost, a cold steel barrel, a towering precipice. Do we all feel this deeply?
I have friends who didn’t make it.
Lost love is a sinking ship. You must swim away. Do not go down with the spars and rigging.
It really is a terrible story, wonderfully written and captivating to the last.
The fire, the pain, the desire of this man– I see it in myself.
Thanks be to God! I made it through!
Thanks be to God! I live!
It truly is a miracle.
All blame is set on Werther, but let us examine the other characters.
Charlotte. No, we cannot place a single hair’s breadth of blame on her. She is a luminous sister, loving wife, and considerate friend.
Albert, husband to Charlotte. He includes a pink ribbon in Werther’s birthday gift. A ribbon worn around Charlotte the first time Werther dances with her. WTF?
Did Charlotte secretly slip the ribbon from her bodice into Werther’s gift?
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Book Review
My highlights and annotations:
Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Chapter 1: THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER
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Highlight: Every tree, every bush, is full of flowers; and one might wish himself transformed into a butterfly, to float about in this ocean of perfume, and find his whole existence in it.
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Highlight: I will no longer, as has ever been my habit, continue to ruminate on every petty vexation which fortune may dispense; I will enjoy the present, and the past shall be for me the past.
Notes: Live in the now.
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Highlight: Descending a gentle slope, you come to an arch, where, some twenty steps lower down, water of the clearest crystal gushes from the marble rock.
Notes: Meet you at the arch.
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Highlight: Most of them labour the greater part of their time for mere subsistence; and the scanty portion of freedom which remains to them so troubles them that they use every exertion to get rid of it. Oh, the destiny of man!
Notes: Matrix rat race.
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Highlight: I know very well that we are not all equal, nor can be so; but it is my opinion that he who avoids the common people, in order not to lose their respect, is as much to blame as a coward who hides himself from his enemy because he fears defeat.
Notes: Shopping at Walmart.
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Highlight: And then, however limited his sphere, he still preserves in his bosom the sweet feeling of liberty, and knows that he can quit his prison whenever he likes.
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Highlight: My good young friend, love is natural; but you must love within bounds. Divide your time: devote a portion to business, and give the hours of recreation to your mistress. Calculate your fortune; and out of the superfluity you may make her a present, only not too often, — on her birthday, and such occasions.
Notes: Romance
Chapter 1: THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER
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Highlight: say what you will of rules, they destroy the genuine feeling of nature, as well as its true expression.
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Highlight: She alone is inexhaustible, and capable of forming the greatest masters.
Notes: Nature.
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Highlight: idyl
Notes: Unsustainable or idealized period of overwhelming peace, happiness, and joy.
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Highlight: An angel! Nonsense! Everybody so describes his mistress; and yet I find it impossible to tell you how perfect she is, or why she is so perfect: suffice it to say she has captivated all my senses.
Notes: Senses are captivated.
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Highlight: Take care,” added the aunt, “that you do not lose your heart.” “Why?” said I. “Because she is already engaged to a very worthy man,” she replied, “who is gone to settle his affairs upon the death of his father, and will succeed to a very considerable inheritance.
Notes: 🙁
Chapter 1: THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER
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Highlight: lovely figure, dressed in a robe of simple white, trimmed with pink ribbons.
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Highlight: every expression seemed to brighten her features with new charms, — with new rays of genius, — which unfolded by degrees, as she felt herself understood.
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Highlight: She dances with her whole heart and soul: her figure is all harmony, elegance, and grace, as if she were conscious of nothing else, and had no other thought or feeling; and, doubtless, for the moment, every other sensation is extinct.
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Highlight: sagaciously
Notes: Mental discenment and good judgement.
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Highlight: It was still thundering at a distance: a soft rain was pouring down over the country, and filled the air around us with delicious odours.
Notes: Kiss me in the rain.
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Highlight: apotheosis
Notes: Culmination or climax.
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Highlight: since that time, sun, moon, and stars may pursue their course: I know not whether it is day or night; the whole world is nothing to me.
Notes: Falling in love.
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Highlight: My days are as happy as those reserved by God for his elect; and, whatever be my fate hereafter, I can never say that I have not tasted joy, — the purest joy of life.
Notes: spending time with you.
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Highlight: Happy is it, indeed, for me that my heart is capable of feeling the same simple and innocent pleasure as the peasant whose table is covered with food of his own rearing, and who not only enjoys his meal, but remembers with delight the happy days and sunny mornings when he planted it, the soft evenings when he watered it, and the pleasure he experienced in watching its daily growth.
Notes: To be a happy peasant.
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Highlight: If our hearts were always disposed to receive the benefits Heaven sends us, we should acquire strength to support evil when it comes.
Notes: A course in miracles.
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Highlight: She was a lively-looking, good-humoured brunette, quite competent to amuse one for a short time in the country.
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Highlight: We should daily repeat to ourselves,” I exclaimed, “that we should not interfere with our friends, unless to leave them in possession of their own joys, and increase their happiness by sharing it with them!
Notes: You are the sun. I love you.
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Highlight: Show me the man who has the courage to hide his ill-humour, who bears the whole burden himself, without disturbing the peace of those around him.
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Highlight: Yes, my angel! I will do so for your sake.
Notes: Anything you ask of me.
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Highlight: No, I am not deceived. In her dark eyes I read a genuine interest in me and in my fortunes. Yes, I feel it; and I may believe my own heart which tells me — dare I say it? — dare I pronounce the divine words? — that she loves me!
Notes: She loves me!
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Highlight: Her innocent, unconscious heart never knows what agony these little familiarities inflict upon me. Sometimes when we are talking she lays her hand upon mine, and in the eagerness of conversation comes closer to me, and her balmy breath reaches my lips, — when I feel as if lightning had struck me, and that I could sink into the earth.
Notes: Your touch.
Chapter 1: THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER
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Highlight: How her simple song enchants me!
Chapter 1: THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER
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Highlight: : I cannot express my sensations when I am near her. I feel as if my soul beat in every nerve of my body. There is a melody which she plays on the piano with angelic skill, — so simple is it, and yet so spiritual! It is her favourite air; and, when she plays the first note, all pain, care, and sorrow disappear from me in a moment.
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Highlight: I shall see her today!” I exclaim with delight, when I rise in the morning, and look out with gladness of heart at the bright, beautiful sun. “I shall see her today!” And then I have no further wish to form: all, all is included in that one thought.
Notes: The experience.
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Highlight: Were he the best and noblest of men, and I in every respect his inferior, I could not endure to see him in possession of such a perfect being.
Notes: the rival.
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Highlight: He has a great deal of feeling, and is fully sensible of the treasure he possesses
Notes: He loves you as much as i love you.
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Highlight: They cannot always succeed in keeping two rivals on terms with each other; but, when they do, they are the only gainers.
Notes: Fine women.
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Highlight: I am amazed to see how deliberately I have entangled myself step by step.
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Highlight: He has received a government appointment, with a very good salary; and I understand he is in high favour at court. I have met few persons so punctual and methodical in business.
Notes: My rival is more succesful.
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Highlight: I have often been told that my style of illustration borders a little on the absurd.
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Highlight: The question, therefore, is, not whether a man is strong or weak, but whether he is able to endure the measure of his sufferings.
Chapter 1: THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER
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Highlight: man is but man; and, whatever be the extent of his reasoning powers, they are of little avail when passion rages within, and he feels himself confined by the narrow limits of nature.
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Highlight: There can be no doubt that in this world nothing is so indispensable as love.
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Highlight: quaff the pleasures of life from the foaming goblet of the Infinite,
Notes: Wow!
Chapter 1: THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER
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Highlight: Everything around is alive with an infinite number of forms; while mankind fly for security to their petty houses, from the shelter of which they rule in their imaginations over the wide-extended universe.
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Highlight: In vain do I stretch out my arms toward her when I awaken in the morning from my weary slumbers. In vain do I seek for her at night in my bed, when some innocent dream has happily deceived me, and placed her near me in the fields, when I have seized her hand and covered it with countless kisses. And when I feel for her in the half confusion of sleep, with the happy sense that she is near, tears flow from my oppressed heart; and, bereft of all comfort, I weep over my future woes.
Notes: Love sick!
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Highlight: What is to come of all this wild, aimless, endless passion? I cannot pray except to her. My imagination sees nothing but her: all surrounding objects are of no account, except as they relate to her. In this dreamy state I enjoy many happy hours, till at length I feel compelled to tear myself away from her.
Notes: The music is over.
The night is through.
All I can think about is you.
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Highlight: early in the morning I received a packet from Albert. Upon opening it, I found one of the pink ribbons which Charlotte wore in her dress the first time I saw her,
Notes: Rival gives ribbon from your dress for maximum frustration!
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Highlight: For is not this anxiety for change the consequence of that restless spirit which would pursue me equally in every situation of life?
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Highlight: I kissed the ribbon a thousand times, and in every breath inhaled the remembrance
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Highlight: But must I despair of my talents and faculties, whilst others of far inferior abilities parade before me with the utmost self-satisfaction? Gracious Providence, to whom I owe all my powers, why didst thou not withhold some of those blessings I possess, and substitute in their place a feeling of self-confidence and contentment?
Chapter 1: THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER
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Highlight: our happiness or misery depends very much on the objects and persons around us.
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Highlight: Oh, the brilliant wretchedness, the weariness, that one is doomed to witness among the silly people whom we meet in society here!
Chapter 1: THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER
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Highlight: a very agreeable girl, who has retained her natural manners in the midst of artificial life.
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Highlight: He, as it seems to me, who can see through the others, and possesses strength or skill enough to make their power or passions subservient to the execution of his own designs.
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Highlight: Oh, that I were sitting at your feet in your favourite little room,
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Highlight: Naturalists tell of a noble race of horses that instinctively open a vein with their teeth, when heated and exhausted by a long course, in order to breathe more freely.
Notes: Horse bleeding.
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Highlight: All the knowledge I possess every one else can acquire, but my heart is exclusively my own.
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Highlight: I smile at the suggestions of my heart, and obey its dictates.
Notes: Holy Spirit
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Highlight: I’m reading a passage from some interesting book, when my heart and Charlotte’s seemed to meet, and in a hundred other instances when our sentiments were unfolded by the story of some fictitious character, have I felt that we were made for each other!
Notes: Cymatic connexion.
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Highlight: I kissed her hand most tenderly.
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Highlight: displays of heavenly innocence
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Highlight: Sometimes I think, if I could only once but once, press her to my heart, this dreadful void would be filled.
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Highlight: I possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. I possess so much, but without her I have nothing.
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Highlight: What is the destiny of man, but to fill up the measure of his sufferings, and to drink his allotted cup of bitterness?
Notes: Going crazy without her.
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Highlight: Her lips never appeared so lovely: they seemed but just to open, that they might imbibe the sweet tones which issued from the instrument, and return the heavenly vibration from her lovely mouth.
Chapter 1: THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER
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Highlight: it is so difficult to discover the real and correct motives of men who are not of the common order.
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Highlight: He is an inward torment to me, and I am incapable of being just toward him.”
Notes: Rival
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Highlight: May every blessing of Heaven attend you!
Notes: Good salutation.
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Highlight: Be a man, and conquer an unhappy attachment toward a creature who can do nothing but pity you.
Notes: Ouch.
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Highlight: The waves come with joy around thee: they bathe thy lovely hair. Farewell, thou silent beam! Let the light of Ossian’s soul arise!
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Highlight: She loves me! These arms have encircled her waist, these lips have trembled upon hers. She is mine!
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Highlight: She loves, she loves me! Still burns upon my lips the sacred fire they received from thine.
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Highlight: I feel you cannot hate the man who so passionately loves you!