Quotes from Jean Paul

Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good action; try to use ordinary situations.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Repetition is the mother of education.

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.

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.

It is not great, but little good-haps that make up happiness.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

The look of a king is itself a deed.

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

Idleness is many gathered miseries in one name.

No rest is worth anything except the rest that is earned.

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

The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.