WorkJohann Wolfgang von Goethe

Maximen und Reflexionen [Maxims and Reflections]

Maximen und Reflexionen [Maxims and Reflections] (selections compiled and published posthumously 1833; individual maxims circulated in Goethe's published works and conversation)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) · assembled 1820s–1832; first collected publication 1840s

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Documented 1839–1849

Letters • Journals

Selected engagements, in chronological order.

Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this work is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist1record

V. New York

VI. Europe1record

✦. Memoirs (1852)

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

1839—

Journal April 1839

p39

excerpted · analyzed · readManuscript page

“A fair friend talented, and united with me in high esteem for Byron exclaimed: every thing that can be said, religious or moral in the world is contained in the three last words of Cain: Goethe.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Journal April 1839." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (Box A); Box 5 (99).

Pages 39–46 of the journal contain a long sequence of excerpts and paraphrases from Goethe's maxims and conversations, attributed to 'G.' or 'Goethe' throughout.

1849—

Letter to Costanza Arconati Visconti

quoted · read

“Goethe says, there is nothing men pardon so little as singular conduct for which no reason is given”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. V. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.

Inferred Fuller attributes explicitly to Goethe a saying about mankind pardoning nothing so little as singular conduct without explanation, using it to contextualize the surprise of Florentine society at her marriage.