Jean Paul

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

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

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

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

If self-knowledge is the road to virtue, so is virtue still more the road to self-knowledge.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

With so many thousand joys, is it not black ingratitude to call the world a place of sorrow and torment?

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.