Quotes on Faust

Faust complained about having two souls in his breast, but I harbor a whole crowd of them and they quarrel. It is like being in a republic.

But Goethe tells us in his greatest poem that Faust lost the liberty of his soul when he said to the passing moment: "Stay, thou art so fair." And our liberty, too, is endangered if we pause for the passing moment, if we rest on our achievements, if we resist the pace of progress. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past are certain to miss the future.

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

The finished man, you know, is difficult to please; a growing mind will ever show you gratitude. --Faust 1, lines 182-3

Who are you then?" "I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.