LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,029)
  • Text Authors (19,315)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,112)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729 - 1781)

Auf sich selbst
Language: German (Deutsch) 
Our translations:  ENG
Ich habe nicht stets Lust zu lesen.
Ich habe nicht stets Lust zu schreiben.
Ich habe nicht stets Lust zu denken;
Kurzum, nicht immer zu studieren.

Doch hab ich allzeit Lust zu scherzen.
Doch hab ich allzeit Lust zu lieben.
Doch hab ich allzeit Lust zu trinken;
Kurz, allezeit vergnügt zu leben.

Verdenkt ihr mirs, ihr sauern Alten?
Ihr habt ja allzeit Lust zu geizen;
Ihr habt ja allzeit Lust zu lehren;
Ihr habt ja allzeit Lust zu tadeln.

Was ihr tut, ist des Alters Folge.
Was ich tu, will die Jugend haben.
Ich gönn euch eure Lust von Herzen.
Wollt ihr mir nicht die meine gönnen?

Available sung texts:   ← What is this?

•   S. Karg-Elert 

View text with all available footnotes

Text Authorship:

  • by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729 - 1781), "Auf sich selbst" [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877 - 1933), "Auf sich selbst", op. 56 no. 3, published 1907, from Zehn Epigramme von Lessing, no. 3. [
     text verified 1 time
    ]

Available translations, adaptations, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • ENG English (Sharon Krebs) , title 1: "About himself", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2007-01-11
Line count: 16
Word count: 107

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris