Jean Paul Quotes & Sayings

Death gives us sleep, eternal youth, and immortality. — Jean Paul

Poverty is the only load which is the heavier the more loved ones there are to assist in bearing it. — Jean Paul

The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering galleries, they are clearly heard at the end, and by posterity. — Jean Paul

Repetition is the mother of education. — Jean Paul

See, indeed, that your daughter is thoroughly grounded and experienced in household duties; but take care, through religion and poetry, to keep her heart open to heaven. — Jean Paul

The darkness of death is like the evening twilight; it makes all objects appear more lovely to the dying. — Jean Paul

Art is indeed not the bread but the wine of life. — Jean Paul

The end we aim at must be known, before the way can be made. — Jean Paul

Feelings of man are always pure and the brightest to the meeting time and Farewell. — Jean Paul

Variety of mere nothings gives more pleasure than uniformity of something. — Jean Paul

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

What a father says to his children is not heard by the world, but it will be heard by posterity. — Jean Paul

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. — Jean Paul

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

In science the new is an advance; but in morals, as contradicting our inner ideals and historic idols, it is ever a retrogression. — Jean Paul

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

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. — Jean Paul

Education should bring to light the ideal of the individual. — Jean Paul

Despair is the only genuine atheism. — Jean Paul

Beauty attracts us men; but if, like an armed magnet it is pointed, beside, with gold and silver, it attracts with tenfold power. — Jean Paul

The miracle on earth are the laws of heaven. — Jean Paul

A sky full of silent suns. — Jean Paul

Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out. — Jean Paul

Passion makes the best observations and the sorriest conclusions. — Jean Paul

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

For sleep, riches and health to be truly enjoyed, they must be interrupted. — Jean Paul

Because the heart beats under a covering of hair, of fur, feathers, or wings, it is, for that reason, to be of no account? — Jean Paul

Every man has a rainy corner of his life whence comes foul weather which follows him. — Jean Paul

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

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. — Jean Paul

Good actions ennoble us, we are the sons of our own deeds. — Jean Paul

As a man grows older it is harder and harder to frighten him. — Jean Paul

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. — Jean Paul

Remembrances last longer than present realities. — Jean Paul

The romance of life begins and ends with two blank pages. Age and extreme old age. — Jean Paul

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

It is easy to flatter; it is harder to praise. — Jean Paul

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. — Jean Paul

The Infinate has sowed His name in the heavens in burning stars, but on earth He has sowed His name in tender flowers. — Jean Paul

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

Love lessens woman's delicacy and increases man's. — Jean Paul

Flowers never emit so sweet and strong a fragrance as before a storm. When a storm approaches thee, be as fragrant as a sweet-smelling flower. — Jean Paul

If self-knowledge is the road to virtue, so is virtue still more the road to self-knowledge. — Jean Paul

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

Humankind's chief fault is that they have so many small ones. — Jean Paul

Fancy rules over two thirds of the universe, the past, and future, while reality is confined to the present — Jean Paul

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

Age does not matter if the matter does not age. — Jean Paul

Without God there is for mankind no purpose, no goal, no hope, only a wavering future, an eternal dread of every darkness. — Jean Paul

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

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

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. — Jean Paul

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. — Jean Paul

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

Man has here two and a half minutes-one to smile, one to sigh, and a half to love: for in the midst of this minute he dies. — Jean Paul

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. — Jean Paul

It is easier and handier for men to flattery than to praise. — Jean Paul

It has been jestingly said that the works of John Paul Richter are almost unintelligible to any but the Germans, and even to some of them. A worthy German, just before Richter's death, edited a complete edition of his works, in which one particular passage fairly puzzled him. Determined to have it explained at the source, he went to John Paul himself. The author's reply was very characteristic: "My good friend, when I wrote that passage, God and I knew what it meant; it is possible that God knows it still; but as for me, I have totally forgotten." — Jean Paul

It is simpler and easier to flatter people than to praise them. — Jean Paul

Never write on a subject until you have read yourself full of it. — Jean Paul

The look of a king is itself a deed. — Jean Paul

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

For no one does life drag more disagreeably than for those who try to speed it up. — Jean Paul

Each departed friend is a magnet that attracts us to the next world. — Jean Paul

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. — Jean Paul

The German language is the organ among the languages. — Jean Paul

The happiness of life consists, like the day, not in single flashes (of light), but in one continuous mild serenity. The most beautiful period of the heart's existence is in this calm equable light, even although it be only moonshine or twilight. Now the mind alone can obtain for us this heavenly cheerfulness and peace. — Jean Paul

Nations and men are only the best when they are the gladdest, and deserve heaven when they enjoy it. — Jean Paul

The burden of suffering seems a tombstone hung about our necks, while in reality it is only the weight which is necessary to keep down the diver while he is hunting for pearls. — Jean Paul

Joy descends gently upon us like the evening dew, and does not patter down like a hailstorm. — Jean Paul

Every man regards his own life as the New Year's Eve of time. — Jean Paul

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

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. — Jean Paul

Every friend is to the other a sun, and a sunflower also. He attracts and follows. — Jean Paul

Sorrows gather around great souls as storms do around mountains; but, like them, they break the storm and purify the air of the plain beneath them. — Jean Paul

A variety of nothing is superior to a monotony of something. — Jean Paul

You prove your worth with your actions, not with your mouth. — Jean Paul

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

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. — Jean Paul

Strong characters are brought out by change of situation, and gentle ones by permanence. — Jean Paul

Romanticism is beauty without bounds-the beautiful infinite. — Jean Paul

Only actions give life strength; only moderation gives it charm. — Jean Paul

No heroine can create a hero through love of one, but she can give birth to one — Jean Paul

Has it never occurred to us, when surrounded by sorrows, that they may be sent to us only for our instruction, as we darken the eyes of birds when we wish them to sing? — Jean Paul

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

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

What makes old age so sad is not that our joys but our hopes cease. — Jean Paul

A loving maiden grows unconsciously more bold. — Jean Paul

People will not bear it when advice is violently given, even if it is well founded. Hearts are flowers; they remain open to the softly falling dew, but shut up in the violent downpour of rain. — Jean Paul

Universal love is a glove without fingers, which fits all bands alike and none closely; but true affection is like a glove with fingers, which fits one hand only, and sits close to that one. — Jean Paul

Age doesn't matter, unless your cheese. — Jean Paul

Nothing is more beautiful than cheerfulness in an old face. — Jean Paul

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

I have made as much out of myself as could be made of the stuff, and no man should require more. — Jean Paul

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 — Jean Paul

Joys are our wings, sorrows our spurs. — Jean Paul

Laughing cheerfulness throws the light of day on all the paths of life. — Jean Paul

Never write on a subject without first having read yourself full on it; and never read on a subject till you have thought yourself hungry on it. — Jean Paul

In women everything is heart, even the head. — Jean Paul

As winter strips the leaves from around us, so that we may see the distant regions they formerly concealed, so old age takes away our enjoyments only to enlarge the prospect of the coming eternity. — Jean Paul