JEAN PAUL

Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out.

Never write on a subject until you have read yourself full of it.

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.

Every man regards his own life as the New Year's Eve of time.

Weaklings must lie.

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

Be great in act, as you have been in thought.

I have made as much out of myself as could be made of the stuff, and no man should require more.

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

Because the heart beats under a covering of hair, of fur, feathers, or wings, it is, for that reason, to be of no account?

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

There are souls which fall from heaven like flowers, but ere they bloom are crushed under the foul tread of some brutal hoof.

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

Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life.

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

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.

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

Woman and men of retiring timidity are cowardly only in dangers which affect themselves, but the first to rescue when others are in danger.

We learn our virtues from our friends who love us; our faults from the enemy who hates us. We cannot easily discover our real character from a friend. He is a mirror, on which the warmth of our breath impedes the clearness of the reflection.

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

A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterward.

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

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

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

Good actions ennoble us, we are the sons of our own deeds.