Jean Paul Quotes

What I see is teeming cohesion, contained dispersal... For him, to sculpt is to take the fat off space.

Absurd, irreducible; nothing--not even a profound and secret delirium of nature--could explain [a tree root].

To eat is to appropriate by destruction.

I’ve dropped out of their hearts like a little sparrow fallen from its nest. So gather me up, dear, fold me to your heart – and you’ll see how nice I can be.

In any case, if you ever leave me with a handsome man, do not tell me that you trust me because, let me warn you: that is not what will prevent me from deceiving you, if I want to. On the contrary.

Man is always a wizard to man, and the social world is at first magical.

I had dreamed my life for nearly fifty years (I am about to be fifty-nine). But, you see, there are two tones in Les Mats: the echo of this condemnation and a mitigation of that severity.

I believe, I desire, that social and economic ills may be remedied.

Il n'y a pas d'autre univers qu'un univers humain, l'univers de la subjectivite humaine. There is no other universe except the human universe, the universe of human subjectivity.

I considered calmly that I was born to write.

Never have I thought that I was the happy possessor of a "talent;" my sole concern has been to save myself by work and faith.

L'homme est une passion inutile. Man is a useless passion.

Man exists, turns up, appears on the scene and only afterwards, defines himself

To believe is to know you believe, and to know you believe is not to believe.

A variety of nothing is superior to a monotony of something.

Joys are our wings, sorrows our spurs.

Love lessens woman's delicacy and increases man's.

With so many thousand joys, is it not black ingratitude to call the world a place of sorrow and torment?

Repetition is the mother of education.

For no one does life drag more disagreeably than for those who try to speed it up.

Ah! The seasons of love roll not backward but onward, downward forever.

Memory, wit, fancy, acuteness, cannot grow young again in old age, but the heart can.

Individuality is to be preserved and respected everywhere, as the root of everything good.

The German language is the organ among the languages.

The purer the golden vessel, the more readily is it bent; the higher worth of woman is sooner lost than that of man.

When I started in fashion, I had already adopted the sailor-striped sweater as my uniform; that way, I wouldn't have to drive myself crazy trying to figure out what to wear.

I am 1952. I masticate. I am like a big stomach.

My clothes have always been expensive. Even though I have had a few lower-priced lines over the years, little by little everything I do tends toward the luxury market.

My best experiences with movies have come when I didn't know what to see.

How can I, who was not able to retain my own past, hope to save that of another?

Outside nature, against nature, without excuse, beyond remedy, except what remedy I find within myself.

I found the human heart empty and insipid everywhere except in books.

Take [Stéphane] Mallarme. I hold him to be the greatest of French poets, and I have taken some time to understand him !

I discovered suddenly that alienation, exploitation of man by man, under-nourishment, relegated to the background metaphysical evil which is a luxury.

If I relegate impossible Salvation to the prop room, what remains? A whole man, composed of all men and as good as all of them and no better than any.

The lad who dreams of being a boxing champion or an admiral chooses reality. If the writer chooses the imaginary, he confuses the two.

I am not recommending "popular" literature which aims at the lowest.

If you begin by saying, 'Thou shalt not lie,' there is no longer any possibility of political action.

it was odd, he thought, that a man could hate himself as though he were someone else.

When one loves animals and children too much, one loves them against human beings.

Un homme n'est rien d'autre qu'une se rie d'entreprises. A man is no other than a series of undertakings.

L'homme est condamne a' e" tre libre. Man is condemned to be free.

Freedom is existence, and in it existence precedes essence.

The writer is committed when he plunges to the very depths of himself with the intent to disclose, not his individuality, but his person in the complex society that conditions and supports him.

A writer who takes political, social or literary positions must act only with the means that are his. These means are the written words.

I have seen children dying of hunger. Over against a dying child La Nausee cannot act as a counterweight.

Respectable society believed in God in order to avoid having to speak about him.

Men equally honest, equally devoted to their fatherland, are momentarily separated by different conceptions of their duty.

Existence is an imperfection.

I wanted the moments of my life to follow and order themselves like those of a life remembered. You might as well try and catch time by the tail.