Jean Paul Quotes

The purer the golden vessel, the more readily is it bent; the higher worth of woman is sooner lost than that of man.

The last, best fruit which comes to late perfection, even in the kindliest soul, is tenderness toward the hard, forbearance toward the unforbearing, warmth of heart toward the cold, philanthropy toward the misanthropic.

Love lessens woman's delicacy and increases man's.

Woman and men of retiring timidity are cowardly only in dangers which affect themselves, but the first to rescue when others are in danger.

Repetition is the mother of education.

A loving maiden grows unconsciously more bold.

Sorrows are like thunderclouds, in the distance they look black, over our heads scarcely gray.

Variety of mere nothings gives more pleasure than uniformity of something.

A variety of nothing is superior to a monotony of something.

Jesus is the purest among the mighty, and the mightiest among the pure, who, with his pierced hand has raised empires from their foundations, turned the stream of history from its old channel, and still continues to rule and guide the ages

A woman who could always love would never grow old; and the love of mother and wife would often give or preserve many charms if it were not too often combined with parental and conjugal anger. There remains in the face of women who are naturally serene and peaceful, and of those rendered so by religion, an after-spring, and later an after-summer, the reflex of their most beautiful bloom.

Romanticism is beauty without bounds-the beautiful infinite.

Only deeds give strength to life, only moderation gives it charm.

The heart needs not for its heaven much space, nor many stars therein, if only the star of love has arisen.

There is a joy in sorrow which none but a mourner can know.

In later life, as in earlier, only a few persons influence the formation of our character; the multitude pass us by like a distant army. One friend, one teacher, one beloved, one club, one dining table, one work table are the means by which one's nation and the spirit of one's nation affect the individual.

There are so many tender and holy emotions flying about in our inward world, which, like angels, can never assume the body of an outward act; so many rich and lovely flowers spring up which bear no seed, that it is a happiness poetry was invented, which receives into its limbs all these incorporeal spirits, and the perfume of all these flowers.

Art is indeed not the bread but the wine of life.

The gymnasium of running, walking on stilts, climbing, etc. stells and makes hardy single powers and muscles, but dancing, like a corporeal poesy, embellishes, exercises, and equalizes all the muscles at once.

With so many thousand joys, is it not black ingratitude to call the world a place of sorrow and torment?

I would rather dwell in the dim fog of superstition than in air rarefied to nothing by the air-pump of unbelief-in which the panting breast expires, vainly and convulsively gasping for breath.

The German language is the organ among the languages.

Whenever, at a party, I have been in the mood to study fools, I have always looked for a great beauty: they always gather round her like flies around a fruit stall.

We learn our virtues from our friends who love us; our faults from the enemy who hates us. We cannot easily discover our real character from a friend. He is a mirror, on which the warmth of our breath impedes the clearness of the reflection.

What Cicero said of men-that they are like wines, age souring the bad, and bettering the good-we can say of misfortune, that it has the same effect upon them.

God is an unutterable sigh, planted in the depths of the soul.

Ah! The seasons of love roll not backward but onward, downward forever.

The guardian angels of life sometimes fly so high as to be beyond our sight, but they are always looking down upon us.

The conscience of children is formed by the influences that surround them; their notions of good and evil are the result of the moral atmosphere they breathe.

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes anothers.

For sleep, riches and health to be truly enjoyed and gratefully appreciated, they must be interrupted so the person can see that not having them is not as good as having them.

Passion makes the best observations and the sorriest conclusions.

Individuality is to be preserved and respected everywhere, as the root of everything good.

How narrow our souls become when absorbed in any present good or ill! It is only the thought of the future that makes them great.

A sky full of silent suns.

It is easy to flatter; it is harder to praise.

Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life.

Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another.

Memory, wit, fancy, acuteness, cannot grow young again in old age, but the heart can.

Like a morning dream, life becomes more and more bright the longer we live, and the reason of everything appears more clear. What has puzzled us before seems less mysterious, and the crooked paths look straighter as we approach the end.

Gray hairs seem to my fancy like the soft light of the moon, silvering over the evening of life.

There are souls which fall from heaven like flowers, but ere they bloom are crushed under the foul tread of some brutal hoof.

It is not the end of joy that makes old age so sad, but the end of hope.

Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in this life.

Man's feelings are always purest and most glowing in the hour of meeting and of farewell.

Like the greatest virtue and the worst dogs, the fiercest hatred is silent.

Joys are our wings, sorrows our spurs.

Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time.