Jean Paul Quotes - Page 4

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

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.

Remembrances last longer than present realities.

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

He thought of the mouldering child, which laid its withered thin arms around his soul, as if it were his own, and to whom Death had given as much as a god gave to Endymion, — sleep, eternal youth, and immortality.

For the Infinite has sowed his name in the heavens in burning stars, but on the earth He has sowed his name in tender flowers.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

feelings of man are always pure and the brightest to the meeting time and Farewell.

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

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

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.

The look of a king is itself a deed.

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

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

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.

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.

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.