Faust Quotes

1. "We are a Faustian generation, my dear--we seek to know what we are maybe not designed (if we are designed) to be able to know."
Author: A.S. Byatt

2. "Lloré durante el sueño y desperté con una inconsolable desesperanza porque Faustine no estaba y con llorado consuelo porque nos habíamos querido sin disimulo."
Author: Adolfo Bioy Casares

3. "You have a face that suits a womanFor her soul's screen--The sort of beauty that's called humanIn hell, Faustine."
Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne

4. "I am not immortal. Faustus and I are the also-ran."
Author: Anne Sexton

5. "Goethe's Faust risks all if he should cry to the moment, the 'augenblick', "Verweile doch!" "Last forever!" Who hasn't prayed that prayer? But the 'augenblick' isn't going to 'verweile'. You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying; it is a canvas, nevertheless."
Author: Annie Dillard

6. "Faustus: Stay, Mephistopheles, and tell me, what good willmy soul do thy lord?Mephistopheles: Enlarge his kingdom.Faustus: Is that the reason he tempts us thus?Mephistopheles: Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.(It is a comfort to the wretched to have companions in misery)"
Author: Christopher Marlowe

7. "FAUSTUS: Where are you damn'd?MEPHISTOPHILIS: In hell.FAUSTUS: How comes it, then, that thou art out of hell?MEPHISTOPHILIS: Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it:"
Author: Christopher Marlowe

8. "A greater subject fitteth Faustus' wit: Bid Economy10 farewell, and11 Galen come, Seeing, Ubi desinit philosophus, ibi incipit medicus: Be a physician, Faustus; heap up gold, And be eterniz'd for some wondrous cure: Summum bonum medicinae sanitas, The end of physic is our body's health."
Author: Christopher Marlowe

9. "MEPHIST. Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it: Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God, And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, Am not tormented with ten thousand hells, In being depriv'd of everlasting bliss? O, Faustus, leave these frivolous demands, Which strike a terror to my fainting soul!"
Author: Christopher Marlowe

10. "FAUSTUS. What, is great Mephistophilis so passionate For being deprived of the joys of heaven? Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitude, And scorn those joys thou never shalt possess. Go bear these tidings to great Lucifer: Seeing Faustus hath incurr'd eternal death By desperate thoughts against Jove's deity, Say, he surrenders up to him his soul, So he will spare him four and twenty years, Letting him live in all voluptuousness; Having thee ever to attend on me, To give me whatsoever I shall ask, To tell me whatsoever I demand, To slay mine enemies, and aid my friends, And always be obedient to my will. Go and return to mighty Lucifer, And meet me in my study at midnight, And then resolve me of thy master's mind."
Author: Christopher Marlowe

11. "FAUSTUS. Had I as many souls as there be stars, I'd give them all for Mephistophilis. By him I'll be great emperor of the world, And make a bridge thorough the moving air, To pass the ocean with a band of men; I'll join the hills that bind the Afric shore, And make that country continent to Spain, And both contributory to my crown: The Emperor shall not live but by my leave, Nor any potentate of Germany. Now that I have obtain'd what I desir'd, I'll live in speculation of this art, Till Mephistophilis return again."
Author: Christopher Marlowe

12. "What art thou Faustus, but a man condemned to die?"
Author: Christopher Marlowe

13. "All beasts are happy,For, when they die,Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements;But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell.Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me!No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse LuciferThat hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven."
Author: Christopher Marlowe

14. "Wagner Doctor Faustus' student and servant: "Alas, poor slave! See how poverty jests in his nakedness. I know the villain's out of service, and so hungry that I know he would give his soul to the devil for a shoulder of mutton, though it were blood raw."Robin a clown: "Not so, neither! I had need to have it well roasted, and good sauce to it, if I pay so dear, I can tell you."
Author: Christopher Marlowe

15. "FAUSTUS. [Stabbing his arm.] Lo, Mephistophilis, for love of thee,I cut mine arm, and with my proper bloodAssure my soul to be great Lucifer's,Chief lord and regent of perpetual night!"
Author: Christopher Marlowe

16. "If someone told me that I could live my life again free of depression provided I was willing to give up the gifts depression has given me--the depth of awareness, the expanded consciousness, the increased sensitivity, the awareness of limitation, the tenderness of love, the meaning of friendship, the apreciation of life, the joy of a passionate heart--I would say, 'This is a Faustian bargain! Give me my depressions. Let the darkness descend. But do not take away the gifts that depression, with the help of some unseen hand, has dredged up from the deep ocean of my soul and strewn along the shores of my life. I can endure darkness if I must; but I cannot lie without these gifts. I cannot live without my soul.' (p. 188)"
Author: David Elkins

17. "In fine, a life of good or evil, the hope of Heaven or the despair of Hell, Faustus stands as a reminder that the choice between these two absolutes also falls to us."
Author: E.A. Bucchianeri

18. "Upon the publication of Goethe's epic drama, the Faustian legend had reached an almost unapproachable zenith. Although many failed to appreciate, or indeed, to understand this magnum opus in its entirety, from this point onward his drama was the rule by which all other Faust adaptations were measured. Goethe had eclipsed the earlier legends and became the undisputed authority on the subject of Faust in the eyes of the new Romantic generation. To deviate from his path would be nothing short of blasphemy."
Author: E.A. Bucchianeri

19. "(Marlowe's) Faustus stubbornly reverts to his atheistic beliefs and continues his elementary pagan re-education ~ the inferno to him is a 'place' invented by men."
Author: E.A. Bucchianeri

20. "... Faustus ... dared to confirm he had advanced beyond the level of a scarlet sinner — he was a conscious follower of the Prince of Darkness. The fact he could publicly project an Antichrist image with pride, having no fear of reprisal, and his seeming diabolical art of escaping all punishment when others who were considered heretics had burned at the stake for less, would certainly signal that an unnatural individual walked in their midst. It is true in many respects he assumed the role of the charlatan, yet how apropos, considering his willingness to follow his ‘brother-in-law' known as the Father of Lies and deception."
Author: E.A. Bucchianeri

21. "I was accused of being against civilization, against science, against humanity. naturally, i was flattered and at the same time surprised, hurt, a little shocked. he repeated the charge. but how, i replied, being myself a member of humanity (albeit involuntarily, without prior consultation), could i be against humanity without being against myself, whom i love - though not very much; how can i be against science, when i gratefully admire, as much as i can, thales, democritus, aristarchus, faustus, paracelsus, copernicus, galiley, kepler, newton, darwin and einstien; and finally, how could i be against civilization when all which i most willingly defend and venerate - including the love of wilderness - is comprehended by the term"
Author: Edward Abbey

22. "Nur noch vereinzelt schlugen mächtige Granaten ein, von denen eine gleich einem Gruß der Hölle vor uns zerschellte und das Kanalbett mit finsteren Qualm füllte. Die Mannschaft verstummte, wie von einer eisigen Faust im Nacken gepackt, und stolperte hastig über Stacheldraht und Steintrümmer hinter mir her. Ein unheimliches Gefühl beschleicht das beim Durchschreiten einer unbekannten Stellung zur Nachtzeit, auch wenn das Feuer nicht sonderlich stark ist; Auge und Ohr werden durch die sonderbarsten Täuschungen gereizt. Alles ist kalt und fremdartig wie in einer verwunschenen Welt."
Author: Ernst Jünger

23. "[The Devil] Mephistopheles, when he comes to Faust, testifies of himself that he desires evil, yet does only good. Well, let him do as he likes, it's quite the opposite with me. I am perhaps the only man in all of nature who loves the truth and sincerely desires good."
Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky

24. "We fight for a vision of the world that is both traditional and Faustian, that allies enrootment and disinstallation, the citizen's freedom and imperial service to the community-as-a-people, passionate creativity and critical reason, an unshakeable loyalty and an adventurous curiosity (WWF 267)"
Author: Guillaume Faye

25. "So I have 8 to 10 screenplays written and unproduced. And frankly, some of them are my favorite stories. I have a Western version of The Count Of Monte Cristo where the count has a clockwork hand. I have a screenplay called Mephisto's Bridge about a Faustian deal with the devil. I love them all."
Author: Guillermo Del Toro

26. "Victor Faust did much more than help me escape a life of abuse and servitude. He changed me.He changed the landscape of my dreams, the dreams I had every day about living ordinarily and freeand on my own. He changed the colors on the palette from primary to rainbow—as dark as the colorsof that rainbow may be."
Author: J.A. Redmerski

27. "Wagner:Ich hab es öfters rühmen hören,Ein Komödiant könnt einen Pfarrer lehren.Faust:Ja, wenn der Pfarrer ein Komödiant ist;Wie das denn wohl zuzeiten kommen mag."
Author: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

28. "MEFISTÓFELES (A FAUSTO.) El populacho nunca advierte la presencia del demonio, aun cuando este lo tenga ya cogido por el pescuezo."
Author: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

29. "I am part of the part that once was everything,Part of the darkness which gave birth to light…Mephistopheles, from Faust."
Author: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

30. "Faust: Who holds the devil, let him hold him well, He hardly will be caught a second time."
Author: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

31. "Man should not be in the service of society, society should be in the service of man. When man is in the service of society, you have a monster state, and that's what is threatening the world at this minute. ...Certainly Star Wars has a valid mythological perspective. It shows the state as a machine and asks, "Is the machine going to crush humanity or serve humanity?" Humanity comes not from the machine but from the heart. What I see in Star Wars is the same problem that Faust gives us: Mephistopheles, the machine man, can provide us with all the means, and is thus likely to determine the aims of life as well. But of course the characteristic of Faust, which makes him eligible to be saved, is that he seeks aims that are not those of the machine. Now, when Luke Skywalker unmasks his father, he is taking off the machine role that the father has played. The father was the uniform. That is power, the state role."
Author: Joseph Campbell

32. "It's not good...Reading and eating at the same time. The stomach needs blood for digestion. When you read, the brain steals the blood. - Fausto"
Author: Mark Mills

33. "I would rather my enemy's sword pierce my heart then my friend's dagger stab me in the back." Faustus - Don't Talk Back To Your Vampire"
Author: Michele Bardsley

34. "Celui qui éprouve de l'aversion pour les danseurs et veut les dénigrer se heurtera toujours à un obstacle infranchissable : leur honnêteté ; car en s'exposant constamment au public, le danseur se condamne à être irréprochable ; il n'a pas conclu comme Faust un contrat avec le Diable, il l'a conclu avec l'Ange : il veut faire de sa vie une oeuvre d'art et c'est dans ce travail que l'Ange l'aide ; car, n'oublie pas, la danse est un art ! C'est dans cette obsession de voir en sa propre vie la matière d'une oeuvre d'art que se trouve la vraie essence du danseur ; il ne prêche pas la morale, il la danse ! Il veut émouvoir et éblouir le monde par la beauté de sa vie ! il est amoureux de sa vie comme un sculpteur peut être amoureux de la statue qu'il est en train de modeler." (chapitre 6)"
Author: Milan Kundera

35. "I just really dig feeling subservient to nature. It brings me a peace and calm. Kind of like a Faustian thing, I think."
Author: Neko Case

36. "Judas sold his soul for thirty pieces of silver; Faust sold his for some extra years of youth; Marilyn Monroe deserted Jesus Christ for Arthur Miller."
Author: Nicholas Samstag

37. "The courageous testimony of Dr. Faust that a maiden's smile is more precious than history, philosophy, education, religion, law, politics,economics, and all the other branches of learning. Learning is another name for vanity. It is the effort of human beings not to be human beings."
Author: Osamu Dazai

38. "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."
Author: Otto Von Bismarck

39. "I'm living in this world. I'm what, a slacker? A "twentysomething"? I'm in the margins. I'm not building a wall but making a brick. Okay, here I am, a tired inheritor of the Me generation, floating from school to street to bookstore to movie theater with a certain uncertainty. I'm in that white space where consumer terror meets irony and pessimism, where Scooby Doo and Dr. Faustus hold equal sway over the mind, where the Butthole Surfers provide the background volume, where we choose what is not obvious over what is easy. It goes on...like TV channel-cruising, no plot, no tragic flaws, no resolution, just mastering the moment, pushing forward, full of sound and fury, full of life signifying everything on any given day..."
Author: Richard Linklater

40. "The great prophetic work of the modern world is Goethe's Faust, so little appreciated among the Anglo-Saxons. Mephistopheles offers Faust unlimited knowledge and unlimited power in exchange for his soul. Modern man has accepted that bargain. . . .I believe in what the Germans term Ehrfurcht: reverence for things one cannot understand. Faust's error was an aspiration to understand, and therefore master, things which, by God or by nature, are set beyond the human compass. He could only achieve this at the cost of making the achievement pointless. Once again, it is exactly what modern man has done."
Author: Robert Aickman

41. "Faustina is a great work of the Creator. She has nothing of what you call brains; she doesn't need them for her destiny... It is to be glorious for a few years: not to outlive some dull husband and live on his money till she is eighty, going to lectures and comparing the attractions of winter tours that offer the romance of the Caribbean."
Author: Robertson Davies

42. "For me, the iPhone is harder than reading Faust."
Author: Rufus Wainwright

43. "A book is a product of a pact with the Devil that inverts the Faustian contract, he'd told Allie. Dr Faustus sacrificed eternity in return for two dozen years of power; the writer agrees to the ruination of his life, and gains (but only if he's lucky) maybe not eternity, but posterity, at least. Either way (this was Jumpy's point) it's the Devil who wins."
Author: Salman Rushdie

44. "My mind has touched the farthest horizons of mortal imagination and reaches ever outward to embrace infinity. There is no knowledge beyond my comprehension, no art or skill upon this entire planet that lies beyond the mastery of my hand. And yet, like Faust, I look in vain, I learn in vain. . . . For as long as I live, no woman will ever look on me in love."
Author: Susan Kay

45. "Some comfort it would have been, could I, like a Faust, have fancied myself tempted and tormented of the Devil; for a Hell, as I imagine, without Life, though only Diabolic Life, were more frightful: but in our age of Downpulling and Disbelief, the very Devil has been pulled down, you cannot so much as believe in a Devil. To me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility: it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb."
Author: Thomas Carlyle

46. "Hannibal at eighteen was rooting for Mephistopheles and contemptuous of Faust, but he only half-listened to the climax. He was watching and breathing Lady Murasaki..."
Author: Thomas Harris

47. "In fact a favourite problem of [John Tyndall] is—Given the molecular forces in a mutton chop, deduce Hamlet or Faust therefrom. He is confident that the Physics of the Future will solve this easily."
Author: Thomas Henry Huxley

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