Jean Paul Quotes

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

Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life.

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

Paradise is always where love dwells.

Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it, and conquering it.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

In women everything is heart, even the head.

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.

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

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.

Men, like bullets, go farthest when they are smoothest.

You prove your worth with your actions, not with your mouth.

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

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.

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

A sky full of silent suns.

A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterward.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time.

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.

Nothing is more beautiful than cheerfulness in an old face.

Two aged men, that had been foes for life, Met by a grave, and wept - and in those tears They washed away the memory of their strife; Then wept again the loss of all those years.

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.

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

The miracle on earth are the laws of heaven.

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

Sleep, riches, and health, to be truly enjoyed, must be interrupted.

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

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

There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go.

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

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.

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.

Romanticism is beauty without bounds-the beautiful infinite.

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.

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

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

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

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