quote · Source-linked selection
We love a girl for very different things than understanding. We love her for her beauty, her youth, her mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults, caprices, and God knows what other inexpressible charms; but we do not love her for her understanding. Her mind we esteem (if it is brilliant), and it may greatly elevate her in our opinion; nay, more, it may enchain us when we already love. But her understanding is not that which awakens and inflames our passions.
We love a girl for very different things than understanding. We love her for her beauty, her youth, her mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults, caprices, and God knows what other inexpressible charms; but we do not love her for her understanding. Her mind we esteem (if it is brilliant), and it may greatly elevate her in our opinion; nay, more, it may enchain us when we already love. But her understanding is not that which awakens and inflames our passions.
Approximate author period: c. 1790 AD · early modern
Meaning not yet available
An individual explanation has not yet been added. We do not substitute a generic description for an interpretation of these particular words.
Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Goethe
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1790 AD · early modern
author lifetime midpoint (1749–1832)
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- Dictionary of Quotations (1893) (1893 AD)
Printed citation: Goethe. · page_525
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.
The voice behind the words.
Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.
More from Goethe ↗