Idleness is many gathered miseries in one name.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Laziness, One liners, Idleness
The very afflictions of our earthly pilgrimage are presages of our future glory, as shadows indicate the sun.
—Jean Paul
The more weakness, the more falsehood; strength goes straight; every cannon-ball that has in it hollows and holes goes crooked. Weaklings must lie.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Weakness
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
Topics: Influence, Family, Leadership, Children
The apparently irreconcilable dissimilarity between our wishes and our means, between our hearts and this world, remains a riddle.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Wishes
There is a joy in sorrow which none but a mourner can know.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Sorrow
Never does a man portray his own character more vividly, than in his manner of portraying another.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Character
Poverty is the only load which is the heavier the more loved ones there are to assist in bearing it.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Poverty
The parent is low, who having children, truly feels bored.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Parenting, Parents
Joys are our wings; sorrows our spurs.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Excitement, Joy
When thou forgivest, the man who has pierced thy heart stands to thee in the relation of the sea-worm, that perforates the shell of the mussel, which straightway closes the wound with a pearl.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Forgiveness
The look of a king is itself a deed.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Power
O, banish the tears of children! Continual rains upon the blossoms are hurtful.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Tears
Variety of mere nothings gives more pleasure than uniformity of something.
—Jean Paul
Death gives us sleep, eternal youth, and immortality.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Death, Dying
The youth of the soul is everlasting, and eternity is youth.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Youth
The only medicine that does women more good than harm is dress.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Dress, Science, Medicine
Every man has a rainy corner of his life whence comes foul weather which follows him.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Problems, Weather, Adversity
The clew of our destiny, wander where we will, lies at the foot of the cradle.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Destiny, Children
Many think themselves to be truly God-fearing when they call this world a valley of tears. But I believe they would be more so, if they called it a happy valley. God is more pleased with those who think everything right in the world, than with those who think nothing right. With so many thousand joys, is it not black ingratitude to call the world a place of sorrow and torment?
—Jean Paul
Topics: Life
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
Topics: Sorrow
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.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Aging, Mystery, Age
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
Our sorrows are like thunder-clouds, which seem black in the distance, but grow lighter as they approach.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Sorrow
Cares are often more difficult to throw off than sorrows; the latter die with time, the former grow.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Sorrow, Sadness
Because a total eclipse of the sun is above my own head, I will not therefore insist that there must be an eclipse in America also; and because snowflakes fall before my own nose, I need not believe that the Gold Coast is also snowed up.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Prejudice
The gymnasium of running, walking on stilts, climbing, etc., steels and makes hardy single powers and muscles, but dancing, like a corporeal poesy, embellishes, exercises, and equalizes all the muscles at once.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Dancing, Exercise
The smallest children are nearest to God, as the smallest planets are nearest the sun.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Children
Despair is the only genuine atheism.
—Jean Paul
Topics: Despair
More joyful eyes look at the setting, than at the rising sun.—Burdens are laid down by the poor, whom the sun consoles more than the rich.—I yearn toward him when he sets, not when he rises.
—Jean Paul
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Thomas Mann German Novelist
- Berthold Auerbach German Novelist
- Hans Carossa German Novelist
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe German Poet
- Nikos Kazantzakis Greek Novelist, Statesman
- Erich Fromm German Social Philosopher
- Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi German Philosopher
- Werner Heisenberg German Theoretical Physicist
- Ludwig van Beethoven German Composer
- Anne Frank German Holocaust Victim
Leave a Reply