Top 90 Jean Paul Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go.”

— Jean Paul

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

— Jean Paul

53. “It is not the end of joy that makes old age so sad, but the end of hope.”

— Jean Paul

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

— Jean Paul

55. “Man has here two and a half minutes-one to smile, one to sigh, and a half to love: for in the midst of this minute he dies.”

— Jean Paul

56. “Every man has a rainy corner of his life whence comes foul weather which follows him.”

— Jean Paul

57. “No heroine can create a hero through love of one, but she can give birth to one.”

— Jean Paul

58. “Every man regards his own life as the New Year’s Eve of time.”

— Jean Paul

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

— Jean Paul

60. “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.”

— Jean Paul

61. “There is a joy in sorrow which none but a mourner can know.”

— Jean Paul

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

— Jean Paul

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

— Jean Paul

64. “Variety of mere nothings gives more pleasure than uniformity of something.”

— Jean Paul

65. “Never write on a subject without first having read yourself full on it; and never read on a subject till you have thought yourself hungry on it.”

— Jean Paul

66. “Memory, wit, fancy, acuteness, cannot grow young again in old age, but the heart can.”

— Jean Paul

67. “The last, best fruit which comes to late perfection, even in the kindliest soul, is tenderness toward the hard, forbearance toward the unforbearing, warmth of heart toward the cold, philanthropy toward the misanthropic.”

— Jean Paul

68. “The purer the golden vessel, the more readily is it bent; the higher worth of woman is sooner lost than that of man.”

— Jean Paul

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

— Jean Paul

70. “Education should bring to light the ideal of the individual.”

— Jean Paul

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

— Jean Paul

72. “Despair is the only genuine atheism.”

— Jean Paul

73. “A sky full of silent suns.”

— Jean Paul

74. “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.”

— Jean Paul

75. “What Cicero said of men-that they are like wines, age souring the bad, and bettering the good-we can say of misfortune, that it has the same effect upon them.”

— Jean Paul

76. “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.”

— Jean Paul

77. “For no one does life drag more disagreeably than for those who try to speed it up.”

— Jean Paul

78. “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.”

— Jean Paul

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

— Jean Paul

80. “As a man grows older it is harder and harder to frighten him.”

— Jean Paul

81. “Remembrances last longer than present realities.”

— Jean Paul

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

— Jean Paul

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

— Jean Paul

84. “Age doesn’t matter, unless your cheese.”

— Jean Paul

85. “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

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

— Jean Paul

87. “The Infinate has sowed His name in the heavens in burning stars, but on earth He has sowed His name in tender flowers.”

— Jean Paul

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

— Jean Paul

89. “Love lessens woman’s delicacy and increases man’s.”

— Jean Paul

90. “Nations and men are only the best when they are the gladdest, and deserve heaven when they enjoy it.”

— Jean Paul

91. “The look of a king is itself a deed.”

— Jean Paul

92. “Has it never occurred to us, when surrounded by sorrows, that they may be sent to us only for our instruction, as we darken the eyes of birds when we wish them to sing?”

— Jean Paul

93. “Humankind’s chief fault is that they have so many small ones.”

— Jean Paul

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

— Jean Paul

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

— Jean Paul

96. “See, indeed, that your daughter is thoroughly grounded and experienced in household duties; but take care, through religion and poetry, to keep her heart open to heaven.”

— Jean Paul

97. “A loving maiden grows unconsciously more bold.”

— Jean Paul

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

— Jean Paul