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. – Jean Paul
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. – Jean Paul
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
The darkness of death is like the evening twilight it makes all objects appear more lovely to the dying. – Jean Paul
The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid. – Denis Diderot