Jean Paul Quotes

Elegance is a question of personality, more than one's clothing.

How could liberty ever establish itself amongst us? Apart from a few tragic scenes, the revolution has been nothing but a web of farcical scenes.

When I hesitate, I do not paint. When I paint, I do not hesitate.

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

When the rich [and politically powerful] make war, it's the poor [and politically weak] who die.

It seems that the inevitable fate of man is never attain complete freedom: princes everywhere tend to despotism and the people to servitude.

I had spent my time counterfeiting eternity.

There are two ways of destroying a people. Either condemn them en bloc or force them to repudiate the leaders they adopted. The second is the worse.

Because the heart beats under a covering of hair, of fur, feathers, or wings, it is, for that reason, to be of no account?

If you want to deserve Hell, you need only stay in bed. The world is iniquity; if you accept it, you are an accomplice, if you change it you are an executioner.

I respect orders but I respect myself too and I do not obey foolish rules made especially to humiliate me.

Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in this life.

In women everything is heart, even the head.

What is masculine and what is feminine, anyway? Why should men not show that they can be fragile or seductive? I am only happy when there is no discrimination.

Fashion is about what you look like, which translates to what you would like to be like.

That’s what existence means: draining one’s own self dry without the sense of thirst.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist.

It's always the badly dressed people who are the most interesting.

I do not believe in God; his existence has been disproved by Science. But in the concentration camp, I learned to believe in men.

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact.

The individual's duty is to do what he wants to do, to think whatever he likes, to be accountable to no one but himself, to challenge every idea and every person.

To choose not to choose is still to act.

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.

I exist. It is soft, so soft, so slow. And light: it seems as though it suspends in the air. It moves.

I want to leave, to go somewhere where I should be really in my place, where I would fit in . . . but my place is nowhere; I am unwanted.

I never could bear the idea of anyone's expecting something from me. It always made me want to do just the opposite.

I do not think therefore I am a moustache

In love, one and one are one.

Commitment is an act, not a word.

There are many kinds of beauty, and you can find it where you least expect.

It is beautiful to be what you are.

I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating.

Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have.

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes anothers.

All I can do is make the best of what I am, become accustomed to it, evaluate the possibilities, and take advantage of them the best I can.

I suppose it is out of laziness that the world is the same day after day. Today it seemed to want to change. And then anything, anything could happen.

A kiss without a moustache, they said then, is like an egg without salt; I will add to it: and it is like Good without Evil.

If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I'm still waiting, it's all been to seduce women basically.

I don't like dreams or reality. I like when dreams become reality because that is my life.

Philosophy which does not help to illuminate the process of the liberation of the oppressed should be rejected.

Designers are to be in connection with what's happening with the movement of society.

What do I care about Jupiter? Justice is a human issue, and I do not need a god to teach it to me.

Men, like bullets, go farthest when they are smoothest.

I can always choose, but I ought to know that if I do not choose, I am still choosing.

Genius is what a man invents when he is looking for a way out.

We make our own hell out of the people around us.

I don't know exactly what is my impact, but I can say I am doing fashion my own way.

If you seek authenticity for authenticity's sake you are no longer authentic.

Women over thirty are at their best, but men over thirty are too old to recognize it

Life begins on the other side of despair.