Faust or Faustus of German legend started his literary life in a late sixteenth century chapbook by an unknown author. He was brought to the English audience by Christopher Marlowe in his play Doctor Faustus, and then flourished in Goethe’s Faust more than two hundred years later (and has become a literary trope since then).
Faust is God’s favourite scholar, bent on learning all there is but dissatisfied with what he has thus far achieved. Mephistopheles is a demon who bets with God that Faust can be corrupted, and proceeds to pit his wits against Faust. In Goethe’s dramatisation, Mephistopheles is a whimsical, down-to-earth character—he is the cynic to Faust’s romantic—and he has some of the best, if not wisest, lines in the play.
Since Quiver Quotes is devoted to fine writing, and in that sense too, the art of rhetoric and the power of the word, let us hear what Mephistopheles, or Mephisto as is his hypocoristic, has to say about words, paradoxes, and human nature. (Taken from the Wordsworth Classics edition; translation by John R. Williams.)
MEPHISTO. I’ve always found that you can foxA wise man or a fool with paradox.It’s an old trick, but it works all the same,2560 And every age has tried time and againTo spread not truth, but error and obscurity,By making three of one and one of three.And so the fools can preach and teach quite undisturbed —Who wants to argue with them? Let them wander on;2555 Most men believe that when they hear a simple word,There must be some great meaning there to ponder.(2557–2566)
A Quiver Of Quotes 