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We learn our virtues from our friends who love us our faults from the enemy who hates us. We cannot easily discover our real character from a friend. He is a mirror, on which the warmth of our breath impedes the clearness of the reflection.

Jean Paul

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Jean Paul
Age: 62 †
Born: 1763
Born: March 21
Died: 1825
Died: November 14
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Johann Paul Friedrich Richter
Jean Paul Richter
Zhen Polʹ Friderik Rikhter
Jean Paul
Johann Paul Richter
Hate
Reflection
Warmth
Cannot
Easily
Virtues
Character
Friendship
Mirror
Real
Friend
Breath
Love
Virtue
Breaths
Enemy
Mirrors
Impedes
Friends
Discover
Clearness
Learn
Faults
Hates

More quotes by Jean Paul

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In later life, as in earlier, only a few persons influence the formation of our character the multitude pass us by like a distant army. One friend, one teacher, one beloved, one club, one dining table, one work table are the means by which one's nation and the spirit of one's nation affect the individual.
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People will not bear it when advice is violently given, even if it is well founded. Hearts are flowers they remain open to the softly falling dew, but shut up in the violent downpour of rain.
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Repetition is the mother of education.
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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.
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It is simpler and easier to flatter people than to praise them.
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If self-knowledge is the road to virtue, so is virtue still more the road to self-knowledge.
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Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it, and conquering it.
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Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another.
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The happiness of life consists, like the day, not in single flashes (of light), but in one continuous mild serenity. The most beautiful period of the heart's existence is in this calm equable light, even although it be only moonshine or twilight. Now the mind alone can obtain for us this heavenly cheerfulness and peace.
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Memory, wit, fancy, acuteness, cannot grow young again in old age, but the heart can.
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The conscience of children is formed by the influences that surround them their notions of good and evil are the result of the moral atmosphere they breathe.
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Ah! The seasons of love roll not backward but onward, downward forever.
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Only deeds give strength to life, only moderation gives it charm.
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Paradise is always where love dwells.
Jean Paul
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What a father says to his children is not heard by the world, but it will be heard by posterity.
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Like the greatest virtue and the worst dogs, the fiercest hatred is silent.
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Jesus is the purest among the mighty, and the mightiest among the pure, who, with his pierced hand has raised empires from their foundations, turned the stream of history from its old channel, and still continues to rule and guide the ages
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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.
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In women everything is heart, even the head.
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Love lessens woman's delicacy and increases man's.
Jean Paul