Jean Paul cytaty

„Miłość podobną jest do kartofli: jest czternaście sposobów przygotowania jej.”

„Cierpienia powinny uszlachetniać, w przeciwnym razie nic nie dają.”

„Dzieciństwo pełne miłości pozwala przeżyć połowę życia w tym zimnym świecie.”

„Porażka jest jedynie szansą na to, aby zacząć jeszcze raz – inteligentniej.”

„Mężczyzna, jak skowronek, śpiewa w blasku słońca. Kobieta, jak słowik, śpiewa w cieniu.”

„Kobieta nie zna piękniejszej i ciekawszej historii nad żywot mężczyzny, którego kocha.”

„Kochać się za młodu, a ożenić na starość, jest to słuchać przez cały dzień śpiewu skowronka latającego w powietrzu, a wieczorem jeść pieczeń z niego.”

„Jednostajność tylko w miłości się nie przykrzy.”

„Miłość bez małżeństwa podobną jest do wędrownego ptaka, który usiada spocząć na maszcie ciągle posuwającego się okrętu; lepsze jest, jak sądzę, piękne a pożyteczne zielone drzewo, co się wcale z miejsca nie rusza i na konarach złożyć można swe gniazdo, nie obawiając się, by go liny okrętowe nie zrzuciły.”

„Czyż wszyscy nie pochodzimy z przeszłości?”

“The virtues, like the body, become strong more by labor than by nourishment.”

“The grandest of heroic deeds are those which are performed within four walls and in domestic privacy.”

“The miracles of earth are the laws of heaven.”

“When Antipater demanded fifty children as hostages from the Spartans, they offered him, in their stead, a hundred men of distinction; unlike ordinary educators, who precisely reverse the offering. The Spartans thought rightly and nobly. In the world of childhood all posterity stands before us, upon which we, like Moses upon the promised land, may only gaze, but not enter.”

“The past and future are veiled; but the past wears the widow's veil; the future, the virgin's.”

“How calmly may we commit ourselves to the hands of Him who bears up the world!”

“No one is so much alone in the universe as a denier of God. With an orphaned heart, which has lost the greatest of fathers, he stands mourning by the immeasurable corpse of nature, no longer moved and sustained by the Spirit of the universe.”

“The life of Christ concerns Him who, being the holiest among the mighty, and the mightiest among the holy, lifted with His pierced hand empires off their hinges, and turned the stream of centuries out of its channel, and still governs the ages.”

“Suffering is my gain; I bow
To my Heavenly Father's will,
And receive it hushed and still;
Suffering is my worship now.”

“Lift thyself up, look. around, and see something higher and brighter than earth, earthworms, and earthly darkness.”

“When in your last hour (think of this) all faculty in the broken spirit shall fade away, and sink into inanity — imagination, thought, effort, enjoyment — then will the flower of belief, which blossoms even in the night, remain to refresh you with its fragrance in the last darkness.”

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

“Music is the moonlight in the gloomy night of life.”

“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 cages of birds when we wish to teach them to sing?”

“The wish falls often warm upon my heart that I may learn nothing here that I cannot continue in the other world; that I may do nothing here but deeds that will bear fruit in heaven.”