Jean Paul

Only actions give life strength only moderation gives it charm.

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

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.

Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life.

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.

The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Death gives us sleep, eternal youth, and immortality.

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

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

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

Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time.

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.

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

Live your life and forget your age.