Entersection

"Mange Knows"
Image credit: Flatbush Pigeon

All this, my friend, will time provide,
And of itself, itself will give;
Soon as you in yourself confide,
You know the way to live!
— Mephistopheles to Faust in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe‘s Faust: A Tragedy, translated by Lewis Filmore, (London: William Smith, 1847), p. 79. First published in the German as Faust: eine Tragödie, (Tübingen, Germany: J. G. Cotta’schen Buchhandlung, 1808).

My worthy friend, all this will give—
Trust in yourself, then know you how to live.
— in The Faust of Goethe: Part I, in English verse, translated by W. H. Colquhoun, (London: Arthur H. Moxon, 1878), p. 122.

My friend, thou soon shalt lose all such misgiving:
Be thou but self-possessed, thou hast the art of living!
— in Faust: A Tragedy, translated by Bayard Taylor, (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1883), p. 82.

Paraphrases

• As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

Posted on behalf of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on Monday, August 2nd, 2010 under Quotations.