We had gone round the thicket (the Webicht), and had turned by Tiefurt into the Weimar road, where we had a view of the setting sun. Goethe was for a while lost in thought. He then said to me, in the words of one of the ancients—
Untergehend sogar ist's immer dieselbige Sonne.
“Still it continues the self-same sun, even while it's sinking.”
“At the age of 75,” Goethe continued, with much cheerfulness, “one must, of course, think sometimes of death. But this thought never gives me the least uneasiness, for I am fully convinced that our spirit is a being of a nature quite indestructible, and that its activity continues from eternity to eternity. It is like the sun, which seems to set only to our earthly eyes, but which, in reality, never sets, but shines on unceasingly.”
The sun had, in the meanwhile, sunk behind the Ettersberg. We felt in the wood the chill of the evening, and drove all the quicker to Wiemar, and to Goethe's house. Goethe urged me to go in with him for a while, and I did so. He was in an extremely engaging mood. He talked a great deal about his theory of colors, and of his obstinate opponents; remarking that he was sure that he had done something in this science.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
Conversations with Eckermann, May 2, 1824
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