Quotes by Jean Paul Richter

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Memory is the only heaven from which we cannot be expelled.

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Longing for love is love itself.

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Only in the moments of meeting and parting do people know how much love they have hidden in their hearts.

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Only women are able to love both God and man.

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He who carries the lantern stumbles more often than he who follows in its footsteps.

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He who has never sought either friendship or love is a thousand times poorer than he who has lost both.

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In woman everything is only heart - even the head.

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A man never shows his character more clearly than when he speaks of another person's character.

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A good doctor saves you, if not from the disease, at least from a bad doctor.

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Man must be open to passions, but also have the power to possess them.

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The further an artist is from the moral ideal, the more expressive he is. This is why half-humans and half-devils always come out more successful than demigods.

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Old age is not sad because it ends joys, but because it ends hopes.

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There is nothing more dangerous than reconciling two people. Scolding them is easier and less dangerous.

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Don't put things off for later, because it won't be easier later.

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Ah, the music! The echo of the distant harmonious world! The sigh of the angel in our soul! When the word and the embrace and the tearful eye freeze, when our hearts yearn in loneliness in our bosoms—ah, then only because of you could they send each other an echo, unite in one hermitage their distant sighs .

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The strongest hatred is the most silent, like the greatest and most virtuous and fiercest dogs.

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We lack jokes, because we lack the seriousness that all the equalizing spirits are now replacing, laughing carelessly at virtue and vice, suppressing them.

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Nudity is the national costume of mankind.

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Music is the poetry of the air.

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Courage does not consist in boldly facing danger, but in meeting it with open eyes.

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Wise Apollo knew that hungry dogs hunt best, light dogs run best, that lean Pegasus is more durable than a heavy riding horse, that fire must be carved from flint. Therefore he rewarded his favorites doomed to poverty, ennobled their souls at the cost of their bodies, and gave them to live a little to live forever.

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Small sufferings drive us out of our minds, big ones bring us back to normal. The cracked bell makes a muffled sound: break it in two and it will make a clean sound again.

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People are more willing to forgive slander than advice.

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Ridicule, moral indignation must be combined with the steadfastness of sublime feeling.

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Memory is the only heaven from which no one can drive us away.

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By abusing you get only a third, by loving and yielding you get everything.

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What is true by lantern light is not necessarily true by sunlight.

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Superstition is a monstrous, almost invincible feeling, because of which a quiet man stands as if in the midst of the huge mill of the Universe, deaf and lonely.

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A man's conscience may err, without dishonoring the man himself, just as he may be tasteless, without falling into bad taste.

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Modest is not he who is indifferent to praise, but he who is attentive to rebuke.

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At present there is more teaching than there are learned, just as there are more virtues than virtuous men.

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Liberty is a good whose possession affords less pleasure than its loss affords suffering.

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The greatest shortcoming of man is that he has many small shortcomings.

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The timid is afraid before danger, the coward, at the moment of it, and the brave, after the danger has passed.

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Sharpness of mind is the consciousness of presence of mind.

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True morality is directly poetic, and poetry, in turn, is mediated moral.

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Love is a novel in a woman's life and a chapter in a man's life.

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It's easier to forget ten kisses than one.

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They say the best rule of thumb in politics is don't drive too much. This rule is equally fair in education.

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Folly is too innocent and senseless to be satirized, and contempt too wretched to be humored, though the immoral part of stupidity deserves satirical mockery, and the immoral part of contempt, comic ridicule.

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Man is beautiful in everything when he asks for forgiveness or forgives others.

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All respectable people are doomed to solitude, that is, to a life away from society.

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Imaginary hatred is much easier to turn into reality than imaginary love, and it is much easier for a man considered evil to be evil than it is for a good man to be good.

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Taste is an aesthetic consciousness.

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Eternity is the time in which ideals live.

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Joy is the sky under which all but enmity flourish.

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The greatest undisputed miracle is people's belief in miracles.

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In this world it is much easier to hear the echo than the answer.

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There are plant-men, animal-men and god-men.

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Great happiness - the test of fire, great unhappiness - only the test of water.

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Men of valor gain more enemies by their speeches, than unworthy men by their evil deeds.

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The despicable woman is the one who, having children, is able to get bored.

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You can get to know your wife or girlfriend better in an hour spent in the company of a third person, than in twenty hours spent together.

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People reveal their intentions most easily when they fail.

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He who boasts of knowing a secret has already revealed half of it, and he will gradually divulge the second.

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He who can endure old age without love, has not loved even in his youth, for years are no hindrance to love.

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When women speak of women, they especially praise the wisdom of beautiful women, and the beauty of the wise, the voice of the peacock and the feathers of the nightingale.

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The book in which all the words are capitalized is difficult to read; so it is in life where all days are Sundays.

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Everyone considers his life to be the beginning of a new age.

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Each of us is sure that we are more important and better than others, but only the stupid and mindless have the courage to admit it.

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Each is ready to correct the whole world rather than to correct himself.

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Of all the arts, music is the most human and the most widespread.

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Health, sleep, and wealth can be valued by the man who lost them and regained them.

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Women stoically bear pains worse than those for which they shed tears.

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Women transfer any idea to the personal plane.

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Earthly life wears away everything that is great in a person, just as the vicissitudes of time eat away the prominent parts of statues and tombstones.

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Men forgive a rival more easily than an unfaithful one, but women hate their rival more than the unfaithful one.

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A man never reveals his own individuality so clearly as when he describes that of another.

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His heart does not immediately understand how immeasurably he suffers; more confused than excited. But as his self-awareness becomes clearer, so does the depth of his misfortune. All the joys of life are dead to him, he only feels the sharp pain that despair gnaws at him. But let's not talk about physical pain! Can the body feel pain like this?

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Our memories are the only paradise from which we cannot be expelled.

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A timid person is afraid before danger, a coward during danger, a brave person after danger has passed.

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After the failure of a plan, there is no better consolation than immediately making a new plan.

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Life is like a book: the fool flips through it superficially, the wise man reads it carefully because he knows he can only read it once.