Quotes from 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.

Only action gives life strength, only moderation gives it charm.

The miracle on earth are the laws of heaven.

Other exercises develop single powers and muscles, but dancing embellishes, exercises, and equalizes all the muscles at once.

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

The only medicine that does women more good than harm is dress.

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

Only actions give life strength only moderation gives it charm.

Death gives us sleep, eternal youth, and immortality.

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.

Age does not matter if the matter does not age.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cares are often more difficult to throw off than sorrows; the latter die with time, the former grow.

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

Memory is the only paradise from which we cannot be driven.