Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes
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Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation (expanded in 1844), wherein he characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind and insatiable metaphysical will. Proceeding from the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant, Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that has been described as an exemplary manifestation of philosophical pessimism, rejecting the contemporaneous post-Kantian philosophies of German idealism. Schopenhauer was among the first thinkers in Western philosophy to share and affirm significant tenets of Eastern philosophy (asceticism, the world-as-appearance), having initially arrived at similar conclusions as the result of his own philosophical work.
Short Quotes By Arthur Schopenhauer
A hedge between keeps friendship green. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A sense of humour is the only divine quality of man. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Any book which is at all important should be re-read immediately. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Authority and example lead the world. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Buying books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Compassion is the basis of morality. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Each day is a little life. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Everybody’s friend is nobody’s. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Everything that happens, happens of necessity. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Faith is like love: it does not let itself be forced. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Fate is cruel and mankind pitiable. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For our improvement we need a mirror. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head. – Arthur Schopenhauer
He who is without hope is also without fear. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Honor and profit cannot fit in a single bag. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Hope is the confusion of the desire for a thing with its probability. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Human life must be some form of mistake. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is only when a man is alone that he is really free. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Knowledge is to certain extent a second existence. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Life is a constant process of dying. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Love Alone Will. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Money is human happiness in the abstract. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Motives are causes experienced from within. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Music is the melody whose text is the world. – Arthur Schopenhauer
No rose without a thorn but many a thorn without a rose. – Arthur Schopenhauer
One can choose what to do, but not what to want. – Arthur Schopenhauer
One should use common words to say uncommon things. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Our civilized world is nothing but a great masquerade. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Pantheism is only a polite form of atheism. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Pride is the direct appreciation of oneself. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Rascals are always sociable, more’s the pity! – Arthur Schopenhauer
Reading is thinking with someone else’s head instead of one’s own. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see. – Arthur Schopenhauer
That I could clamber to the frozen moon. And draw the ladder after me. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The word of man is the most durable of all material. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The world is my idea. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The world is my representation. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Time is that in which all things pass away. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To live alone is the fate of all great souls. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Treat a work of art like a prince: let it speak to you first. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Truth is most beautiful undraped. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Unrest is the mark of existence. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Want and boredom are indeed the twin poles of human life. – Arthur Schopenhauer
What people commonly call fate is mostly their own stupidity. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity. – Arthur Schopenhauer
You must let it run its course and abide the result. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A book can never be anything more than the impress of its author’s thoughts; and the value of these will lie either in the matter about which he has thought, or in the form which his thoughts take, in other words, what it is that he has thought about it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A completely truthful woman who does not practice dissimulation is perhaps an impossibility, which is why women see through the dissimulation of others so easily. It is inadvisable to attempt it with them. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A genuine work of art can never be false, nor can it be discredited through the lapse of time, for it does not present an opinion but the thing itself. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A great affliction of all Philistines is that idealities afford them no entertainment, but to escape from boredom they are always in need of realities. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A major difficulty in translation is that a word in one language seldom has a precise equivalent in another one. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man becomes a philosopher by reason of a certain perplexity, from which he seeks to free himself. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man can surely do what he wills to do, but cannot determine what he wills. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man may call to mind the face of his friend, but not his own. Here, then, is an initial difficulty in the way of applying the maxim, Know Thyself. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man of business will often deceive you without the slightest scruple, but he will absolutely refuse to commit a theft. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man of correct insight among those who are duped and deluded resembles one whose watch is right while all the clocks in the town give the wrong time. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man of genius can hardly be sociable, for what dialogues could indeed be so intelligent and entertaining as his own monologues? – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man of intellect is like an artist who gives a concert without any help from anyone else, playing on a single instrument–a piano, say, which is a little orchestra in itself. Such a man is a little world in himself; and the effect produced by various instruments together, he produces single-handed, in the unity of his own consciousness. Like the piano, he has no place in a symphony; he is a soloist and performs by himself–in solitude, it may be; or if in the company with other instruments, only as principal; or for setting the tone, as in singing. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man of talent will strive for money and reputation; but the spring that moves genius to the production of its works is not as easy to name. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man sees a great many things when he looks at the world for himself, and he sees them from many sides; but this method of learning is not nearly so short or so quick as the method that employs abstract ideas and makes hasty generalizations about everything. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man should avoid being led by the phantoms of his imaginary nothing. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man should never let himself be mastered by the impressions of the moment, or indeed by outward appearances at all, which are incomparably more powerful in their effects than the mere play of thought or a train of ideas; not because these momentary impressions are rich in virtue of the data they supply,—it is often just the contrary,—but because they are something palpable to the senses and direct in their working; they forcibly invade our mind, disturbing our repose and shattering our resolutions. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man shows his character just in the way in which he deals with trifles, for then he is off his guard. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man who has no mental needs, because his intellect is of the narrow and normal amount, is, in the strict sense of the word, what is called a philistine. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man who has not enough originality to think out a new title for his book will be much less capable of giving it new contents. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man’s delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes.
A man’s face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man’s thoughts and aspirations. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man’s knowledge may be said to be mature, in other words, when it has reached the most complete state of perfection to which he, as an individual, is capable of bringing it, when an exact correspondence is established between the whole of his abstract ideas and the things he has actually perceived for himself. His will mean that each of his abstract ideas rests, directly or indirectly, upon a basis of observation, which alone endows it with any real value; and also that he is able to place every observation he makes under the right abstract idea which belongs to it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man’s delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner; nor with his fate if the corner granted him allows of his following his vocation without having to think about other people. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A reproach can only hurt if it hits the mark. Whoever knows that he does not deserve a reproach can treat it with contempt. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A sense of humor is the only divine quality of man. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A woman (with certain exceptions which need not be mentioned) will not take the first step with a man; for in spite of all the beauty she may have, she risks a refusal. A man may be ill in mind or body, or busy, or gloomy, and so not care for advances; and a refusal would be a blow to her vanity. But as soon as he takes the first step, and helps her over this danger, he stands on a footing of equality with her, and will generally find her quite tractable. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A word too much always defeats its purpose. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A writer should never be brief at the expense of being clear. – Arthur Schopenhauer
All our wanting comes from needs, thus we continiously suffer. The intellect teaches free will, free from suffering. – Arthur Schopenhauer
All pantheism must ultimately be shipwrecked on the inescapable demands of ethics, and then on the evil and suffering of the world. If the world is a theophany, then everything done by man, and even by animal, is equally divine and excellent; nothing can be more censurable and nothing more praiseworthy than anything else; hence there is no ethics. – Arthur Schopenhauer
All religions promise a reward for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding. – Arthur Schopenhauer
All the cruelty and torment of which the world is full is in fact merely the necessary result of the totality of the forms under which the will to live is objectified. – Arthur Schopenhauer
All wanting comes from need, therefore from lack, therefore from suffering. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Although as a rule the absurd culminates, and it seems impossible for the voice of the individual ever to penetrate through the chorus of foolers and fooled, still there is left to the genuine works of all times a quite peculiar, silent, slow, and powerful influence; and as if by a miracle, we see them rise at last out of the turmoil like a balloon that floats up out of the thick atmosphere of this globe into purer regions. Having once arrived there, it remains at rest, and no one can any longer draw it down again. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Always to see the general in the particular is the very foundation of genius. – Arthur Schopenhauer
And again, as regards space, small objects close to us look big, and if they are very close, we may be able to see nothing else, but when we go a little way off, they become minute and invisible. It is the same again as regards time. The little incidents and accidents of every day fill us with emotion, anxiety, annoyance, passion, as long as they are close to us, when they appear so big, so important, so serious; but as soon as they are borne down the restless stream of time, they lose what significance they had; we think no more of them and soon forget them altogether. They were big only because they were near. – Arthur Schopenhauer
And in default of some objective interest of the kind I have mentioned, recourse is usually had to something subjective. A bottle of wine is not an uncommon means of introducing a mutual feeling of fellowship; and even tea and coffee are used for a like end. – Arthur Schopenhauer
And then the years pass more quickly as we become older… A thousand things become clear, which were formerly enveloped in obscurity, and results are obtained which give a feeling of difficulties overcome. – Arthur Schopenhauer
And yet, just as our body would burst asunder if the pressure of the atmosphere were removed from it, so would the arrogance of men expand, if not to the point of bursting then to that of the most unbridled folly, indeed madness, if the pressure of want, toil, calamity and frustration were removed from their life. One can even say that we require at all times a certain quantity of care or sorrow or want, as a ship requires ballast, in order to keep on a straight course. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Anti-intellectualism has long been the anti-Semitism of the business man. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Any beautiful mind full of ideas would always express itself in the most natural, simple, and straightforward way, anxious to communicate its thoughts to others and thus relieve the solitude that he must experience in a world such as this. But conversely, intellectual poverty, confusion, and wrong-headedness clothe themselves in the most labored expressions and obscure turns of phrase in order to conceal petty, trivial, bland, or trite thoughts in difficult and pompous expressions. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Any foolish boy can stamp on a beetle, but all the professors in the world cannot make a beetle. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Any incident, however trivial, that rouses disagreeable emotion, leaves an after-effect in our mind, which for the time it lasts, prevents our taking a clear objective view of the things about us, and tinges all our thoughts: just as a small object held close to the eye limits and distorts our field of vision. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Anyone can squash a bug but all professors of this world couldn’t build one. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Apart from man, no being wonders at its own experience. – Arthur Schopenhauer
As a general rule, the longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the later it will be in coming; for all excellent products require time for their development. – Arthur Schopenhauer
As my own father was sick, and miserably tied to his invalid’s chair, he would have been abandoned had not an old servant performed for him a so-called service of love. My mother gave parties while he was perishing in solitude, and amused herself while he was suffering bitter agonies. – Arthur Schopenhauer
As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself; because only through ordering what you know by comparing every truth with every other truth can you take complete possession of your knowledge and get it into your power. – Arthur Schopenhauer
As the strata of the earth preserve in succession the living creatures of past epochs, so the shelves of libraries preserve in succession the errors of the past and their expositions, which like the former were very lively and made a great commotion in their own age but now stand petrified and stiff in a place where only the literary palaeontologist regards them. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Astrology furnishes a splendid proof of the contemptible subjectivity of men in consequence whereof they refer everything to themselves and from every idea at once go straight back to themselves. Astrology refers the course of celestial bodies to the miserable ego; it also establishes a connection between the comets in heaven and the squabbles and rascalities on earth. – Arthur Schopenhauer
At bottom, every state regards another as a gang of robbers who will fall upon it as soon as there is an opportunity. – Arthur Schopenhauer
At the age of five years to enter a spinning-cotton or other factory, and from that time forth to sit there daily, first ten, then twelve, and ultimately fourteen hours, performing the same mechanical labour, is to purchase dearly the satisfaction of drawing breath. But this is the fate of millions, and that of millions more is analogous to it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Authors may be divided into falling stars, planets, and fixed stars: the first have a momentary effect; the second have a much longer duration; but the third are unchangeable, possess their own light, and work for all time. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Because Christian morality leaves animals out of account, they are at once outlawed in philosophical morals; they are mere ‘things,’ mere means to any ends whatsoever. They can therefore be used for vivisection, hunting, coursing, bullfights, and horse racing, and can be whipped to death as they struggle along with heavy carts of stone. Shame on such a morality that is worthy of pariahs, and that fails to recognize the eternal essence that exists in every living thing, and shines forth with inscrutable significance from all eyes that see the sun! – Arthur Schopenhauer
Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another’s money. Idiots! – Arthur Schopenhauer
Before you take anything away, you must have something better to put in its place. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Boredom is an evil that is not to be estimated lightly. It can come in the end to real despair. The public authority takes precautions against it everywhere, as against other universal calamities. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them; but as a rule, the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Clio, the muse of history, is as thoroughly infected with lies as a street whore with syphilis. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character; and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man or woman. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Conscience accompanies every act with the comment: You should act differently, although its true sense is: You could be other than you are. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Consciousness is the mere surface of our minds, of which, as of the earth, we do not know the inside, but only the crust. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Consider the Koran… this wretched book was sufficient to start a world-religion, to satisfy the metaphysical need of countless millions for twelve hundred years, to become the basis of their morality and of a remarkable contempt for death, and also to inspire them to bloody wars and the most extensive conquests. In this book we find the saddest and poorest form of theism. Much may be lost in translation, but I have not been able to discover in it one single idea of value. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Console yourself by remembering that the world doesn’t deserve your affection. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Das Ganze der Erfahrung gleicht einer Geheimschrift und die Philosophie der Entzifferung derselben. The whole of experience is like a cryptograph, and philosophy is like the deciphering of it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Descartes is rightly regarded as the father of modern philosophy primarily and generally because he helped the faculty of reason to stand on its own feet by teaching men to use their brains. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Dissimulation is innate in woman, and almost as much a quality of the stupid as of the clever. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Dissimulation is thus inborn in her, and consequently to be found in the stupid woman almost as often as in the clever one. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Education perverts the mind since we are directly opposing the natural development of our mind by obtaining ideas first and observations last. This is why so few men of learning have such sound common sense as is quite common among the illiterate. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Education stuffs you full of ideas without the coinciding experience that gave rise to those ideas in the first place—giving you incorrect perspective and notions. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Empirical sciences prosecuted purely for their own sake, and without philosophic tendency are like a face without eyes. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Error always does harm; sooner or later it will bring mischief to the man who harbors it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Evening is like old age we are languid, talkative, silly. Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every child is in a way a genius; and every genius is in a way a child. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every generation, no matter how paltry its character, thinks itself much wiser than the one immediately preceding it, let alone those that are more remote. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every genius is a great child; he gazes out at the world as something strange, a spectacle, and therefore with purely objective interest. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every hero is a Samson. The strong man succumbs to the intrigues of the weak and the many; and if in the end he loses all patience he crushes both them and himself. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every human perfection is allied to a defect into which it threatens to pass, but it is also true that every defect is allied to a perfection. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every human perfection is linked to an error which it threatens to turn into. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every Man Mistakes the Limits of His Vision For The Limits Of The World. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. This is an error of the intellect as inevitable as that error of the eye which lets you fancy that on the horizon heaven and earth meet. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every nation criticizes every other one — and they are all correct. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every original idea is first ridiculed, then vigorously attacked, and finally taken for granted. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every satisfaction he attains lays the seeds of some new desire, so that there is no end to the wishes of each individual will. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every woman while she would be ready to die of shame if surprised in the act of generation, nonetheless carries her pregnancy without a trace of shame and indeed with a kind of pride. The reason is that pregnancy is in a certain sense a cancellation of the guilt incurred by coitus; thus coitus bears all the shame and disgrace of the affair, while pregnancy, which is so intimately associated with it, stays pure and innocent and is indeed to some extent sacred. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Everything is beautiful only so long as it does not concern us. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to dramatic art, for the object of journalism is to make events go as far as possible. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For an act to be moral the intention must be based on compassion, not duty. We do something because we want to do it, because we feel we have to do it, not because we ought to do it. And even if our efforts fail – or we never even get to implement them – we are still moral because our motivation was based on compassion. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible – Arthur Schopenhauer
For his life was never anything more than a present moment always vanishing; and now it is over. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For it is a matter of daily observation that people take the greatest pleasure in that which satisfies their vanity; and vanity cannot be satisfied without comparison with others. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For politeness is like a counter—an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For that which is otherwise quite indistinguishable all affliction, vexation, loss, grief, time alone digests. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For the less the will is excited, the less we suffer. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For the more a man has in himself, the less he will want from other people—the less, indeed, other people can be to him. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For the more one reads, the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For the practical man, the most needful thing is to acquire an accurate and profound knowledge of the ways of the world. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For the purpose of acquiring gain, everything else is pushed aside or thrown overboard, for example, as is philosophy by the professors of philosophy. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For the world is hell, and men are on the one hand the tormented souls and on the other the devils in it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For what is modesty but hypocritical humility, by means of which, in a world swelling with vile envy, a man seeks to beg pardon for his excellences and merits from those who have none? – Arthur Schopenhauer
For what is our civilized world but a big masquerade? – Arthur Schopenhauer
For whence did Dante take the materials for his hell but from this our actual world? And yet he made a very proper hell of it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For where did Dante get the material for his hell, if not from this actual world of ours? – Arthur Schopenhauer
Freedom of the press is to the machinery of the state what the safety valve is to the steam engine. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Genius is an intellect that has become unfaithful to its destiny. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Genius is its own reward; for the best that one is, one must necessarily be for oneself. . . . Further, genius consists in the working of the free intellect., and as a consequence the productions of genius serve no useful purpose. The work of genius may be music, philosophy, painting, or poetry; it is nothing for use or profit. To be useless and unprofitable is one of the characteristics of genius; it is their patent of nobility. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Genius is to other gifts what the carbuncle is to the precious stones. It sends forth its own light, whereas other stones only reflect borrowed light. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Genuine contempt, on the other hand, is the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Hatred is a thing of the heart, contempt a thing of the head. And neither feeling is quite within our control. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head. – Arthur Schopenhauer
He who can see truly in the midst of general infatuation is like a man whose watch keeps good time, when all clocks in the town in which he lives are wrong. He alone knows the right time; what use is that to him? – Arthur Schopenhauer
He who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom. – Arthur Schopenhauer
He who lives to see two or three generations is like a man who sits some time in the conjurer’s booth at a fair, and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession. The tricks were meant to be seen only once; and when they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive, their effect is gone. – Arthur Schopenhauer
He who writes carelessly confesses, thereby, at the very outset that he does not attach much importance to his own thoughts. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Hence, in all countries the chief occupation of society is card-playing, and it is the gauge of its value, and an outward sign that it is bankrupt in thought. Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another’s money. Idiots! – Arthur Schopenhauer
Hence, it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read. – Arthur Schopenhauer
History is the long, difficult and confused dream of Mankind. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Honor means that a man is not exceptional; fame, that he is. Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Honour is external conscience, and conscience is inward honour. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Hope is the confusion of the desire for a thing with its probability. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Hope is the result of confusing the desire that something should take place with the probability that it will. Perhaps no man is free from this folly of the heart, which deranges the intellect’s correct appreciation of probability. – Arthur Schopenhauer
How entirely does the Upanishad breathe throughout the holy spirit of the Vedas! How is every one who by a diligent study of its Persian Latin has become familiar with that incomparable book stirred by that spirit to the very depth of his Soul! – Arthur Schopenhauer
How is it possible that suffering that is neither my own nor of my concern should immediately affect me as though it were my own, and with such force that is moves me to action? – Arthur Schopenhauer
However, for the man who studies to gain insight, books and studies are merely rungs of the ladder on which he climbs to the summit of knowledge. – Arthur Schopenhauer
However, for the man who studies to gain insight, books and studies are merely rungs of the ladder on which he climbs to the summit of knowledge. As soon as a rung has raised him up one step, he leaves it behind. On the other hand, the many who study in order to fill their memory do not use the rungs of the ladder for climbing, but take them off and load themselves with them to take away, rejoicing at the increasing weight of the burden. They remain below forever, because they bear what should have borne them. – Arthur Schopenhauer
I am often surprised by the cleverness, and now and again by the stupidity of my dog; and I have similar experiences with mankind. – Arthur Schopenhauer
I believe a person of any fine feeling scarcely ever sees a new face without a sensation akin to a shock, for the reason that it presents a new and surprising combination of unedifying elements. – Arthur Schopenhauer
I constantly saw the false and the bad, and finally the absurd and the senseless, standing in universal admiration and honour. – Arthur Schopenhauer
I have long held the opinion that the amount of noise that anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity and therefore be regarded as a pretty fair measure of it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
I have not yet spoken my last word about women. I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself from above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more than a man. – Arthur Schopenhauer
I know of no more beautiful prayer than that which the Hindus of old used in closing: May all that have life be delivered from suffering. – Arthur Schopenhauer
I love looking at famous people. Because of the way they look. Because of the way photography makes them look famous. – Arthur Schopenhauer
I observed once to Goethe, in complaining of the illusion and vanity of life, that when a friend is with us we do not think the same of him as when he is away. He replied: “Yes! because the absent friend is yourself, and he exists only in your head; whereas the friend who is present has an individuality of his own, and moves according to laws of his own, which cannot always be in accordance with those which you form for yourself.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
I owe what is best in my own development to the impression made by Kant’s works, the sacred writings of the Hindus, and Plato. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If a man demands that others, who are altogether different from himself, shall nevertheless be just what he wants them to be for the moment, according to the degree of education which he has reached, or according to his intellectual powers or his mood—the man, I say, who does this, is in contradiction with himself. For while he wants some one who shall be different from himself, and wants him just because he is different, for the sake of society and fresh influence, he nevertheless demands that this other individual shall precisely resemble the imaginary creature who accords with his mood, and have no thoughts but those which he has himself. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If a man sets out to hate all the miserable creatures he meets, he will not have much energy left for anything else; whereas he can despise them, one and all, with the greatest ease. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If a person is stupid, we excuse him by saying that he cannot help it; but if we attempted to excuse in precisely the same way the person who is bad, we should be laughed at. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If at any moment Time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the miseries of boredom. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If at times I have thought myself unfortunate, it is because of a confusion, an error. I have mistaken myself for someone else… Who am I really? I am the author of The World as Will and Representation, I am the one who has given an answer to the mystery of Being that will occupy the thinkers of future centuries. That is what I am, and who can dispute it in the years of life that still remain for me? – Arthur Schopenhauer
If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? – Arthur Schopenhauer
If God made the world, I would not be that God, for the misery of the world would break my heart. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If God made this world, then I would not want to be the God. It is full of misery and distress that it breaks my heart. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If I maintain my silence about my secret, it is my prisoner. If I let it slip from my tongue, I am its prisoner. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If only other people will applaud him, a man may console himself for downright misfortune… and conversely, it is astonishing how infallibly a man will be annoyed, and in some cases deeply pained, by any wrong done to his feeling of self-importance, whatever be the nature, degree, or circumstances of the injury, or by any depreciation, slight, or disregard. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If the lives of men were relieved of all need, hardship and adversity; if everything they took in hand were successful, they would be so swollen with arrogance that, though they might not burst, they would present the spectacle of unbridled folly-nay, they would go mad. And I may say, further, that a certain amount of care or pain or trouble is necessary for every man at all times. A ship without ballast is unstable and will not go straight. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If the world were a paradise of luxury and ease, a land flowing with milk and honey, where every Jack obtained his Jill at once and without any difficulty, men would either die of boredom or hang themselves or there would be wars, massacres, and murders; so that in the end, mankind would inflict more suffering on itself than it has now to accept at the hands of nature. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If there is anything in the world that can really be called a man’s property, it is surely that which is the result of his mental activity. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If we suspect that a man is lying, we should pretend to believe him; for then he becomes bold and assured, lies more vigorously, and is unmasked. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If you feel irritated by the absurd remarks of two people whose conversation you happen to overhear, you should imagine that you are listening to a dialogue of two fools in a comedy. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If you hold small objects close to your eyes, you limit your field of vision and shut out the world. And, in the same way, the people or the things that stand nearest, even though they are of the very smallest consequence, are apt to claim an amount of attention much beyond their due, occupying us disagreeably, and leaving no room for serious thoughts and affairs of importance. We ought to work against this tendency. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Ignorance is degrading only when found in company with great riches. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Imagination is strong in a man when that particular function of the brain which enables him to observe is roused to activity without any necessary excitement of the sense. Accordingly, we find that imagination is active just in proportion as our sense are not excited by external objects. A long period of solitude, whether in prison or in a sick room; quiet, twilight, darkness-these are the things that promote its activity; and under their influence it comes into play of itself. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Immediate reality is conditional upon individual consciousness. Thus the individual real existence of man also lies first and foremost in his consciousness. But this is as such necessarily ideational, and thus conditioned by the intellect and by the sphere and substance of the intellect’s activity. The degree of clarity of consciousness, and consequently of thought, can therefore be regarded as the degree of reality of existence. But this degree of thought, or of clear consciousness of ones own existence and that of others, varies very greatly within the human race itself according to the measure of natural intellectual power, the extent to which this is developed, and the amount of leisure available for reflection. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In all matters affecting our weal or woe, we should be careful not to let our imagination run away with us, and build no castles in the air. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In many cases hate a person is rooted in the involuntary estimate of its virtues. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In order to increase his pleasures, man has intentionally added to the number and pressure of his needs, which in their original state were not much more difficult to satisfy than those of the brute. Hence luxury in all its forms; delicate food, the use of tobacco and opium, spirituous liquors, fine clothes, and the thousand and one things that he considers necessary to his existence. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one’s rights and double one’s duties. – Arthur Schopenhauer
in place whereof the Bible, on the one hand, and Aristotle, on the other, had previously served. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In the blessings as well as in the ills of life, less depends upon what befalls us than upon the way in which it is met. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In the end, everyone stands alone, and the important thing is who it is that stands alone. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In their hearts women think that it is men’s business to earn money and theirs to spend it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In their search for gold, the alchemist discovered other things–gun powder, medicine, the laws of nature. There is a sense in which we are all alchemists. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In this world, where the game is played with loaded dice, a man must have a temper of iron, with armor proof to the blows of fate, and weapons to make his way against men. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In youth it is the outward aspect of things that most engages us; while in age, thought or reflection is the predominating quality of the mind. Hence, youth is the time for poetry, and age is more inclined to philosophy. In practical affairs it is the same: a man shapes his resolutions in youth more by the impression that the outward world makes upon him; whereas, when he is old, it is thought that determines his actions. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Indeed, intolerance is essential only to monotheism; an only God is by nature a jealous God who will not allow another to live. On the other hand, polytheistic gods are naturally tolerant, they live and let live. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Intellect is a magnitude of intensity, not a magnitude of extensity. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Intellect is invisible to the man who has none. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is a cowardly soul that shrinks or grows faint and despondent as soon as the storm begins to gather, or even when the first cloud appears on the horizon. Our motto should be No Surrender; and far from yielding to the ills of life, let us take fresh courage from misfortune: “Do not give way to evil, but face it more boldly.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is a curious fact that in bad days we can very vividly recall the good time that is now no more; but that in good days, we have only a very cold and imperfect memory of the bad. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. For politeness is like a counter–an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is difficult, if not impossible, to define the limit of our reasonable desires in respect of possessions. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is easy to understand that in the dreary middle ages the Aristotelian logic would be very acceptable to the controversial spirit of the schoolmen, which, in the absence of all real knowledge, spent its energy upon mere formulas and words, and that it would be eagerly adopted even in its mutilated Arabian form, and presently established as the centre of all knowledge. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is easy to understand that the thing that lies before our very eyes will produce the whole of its effect at once, but that time and leisure are necessary for the working of thought and the appreciation of argument, as it is impossible to think of everything at one and the same moment. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is in and by itself absurd to regard non-existence as an evil; for every evil, like every good, presupposes existence, indeed even consciousness. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is in the treatment of trifles that a person shows what they are. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is in trifles, and when he is off his guard, that a man best shows his character. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is just as easy to flatter and win them over; and this is why their judgment is usually corrupt, and why their opinions are swayed, not by what is really true and right, but by the favor of the party or class to which they belong. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is less hurtful to take the chances of misfortune as a theme for speculation because in doing so, we provide ourselves at once with measures of precaution against it and a pleasant surprise when it fails to make its appearance. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is most important to allow the brain the full measure of sleep which is required to restore it; for sleep is to a man’s whole nature what winding up is to a clock. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is not what things are objectively and in themselves, but what they are for us, in our way of looking at them, that makes us happy or the reverse. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is only in the microscope that our life looks so big. It is an indivisible point, drawn out and magnified by the powerful lenses of Time and Space. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is only the hope of what is claimed that begets and nourishes the wish. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is only the man whose intellect is clouded by his sexual impulse that could give the name of the fair sex to that undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and short-legged race. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is rare for a man who teaches to know his subject thoroughly; for if he studies it as he ought, he has in most cases no time left in which to teach it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is Schadenfreude, a mischievous delight in the misfortunes of others, which remains the worst trait in human nature. … In general, it may be said of it that it takes the place which pity ought to take—pity which is its opposite, and the true source of all real justice and charity. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is the courage to make a clean breast of it in the face of every question that makes the philosopher. He must be like Sophocles’ Oedipus, who, seeking enlightenment concerning his terrible fate, pursues his indefatigable inquiry even though he divines that appalling horror awaits him in the answer. But most of us carry with us the Jocasta in our hearts, who begs Oedipus, for God’s sake, not to inquire further. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is very necessary that a man should be apprised early in life that it is a masquerade in which he finds himself. For otherwise there are many things that he will fail to understand and put up with, nay, at which he will be completely puzzled. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is, indeed, only in old age that intellectual men attain their sublime expression, whilst portraits of them in their youth show only the first traces of it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It often happens that we blurt out things that may in some kind of way be harmful to us, but we are silent about things that may make us look ridiculous; because in this case effect follows very quickly on cause. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It takes place, by and large, with the same sort of necessity as a tree brings forth fruit, and demands of the world no more than a soil on which the individual can flourish. – Arthur Schopenhauer
it that he may use it for his own personal ends, which are always selfish and material. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It would be better if there were nothing. Since there is more pain than pleasure on earth, every satisfaction is only transitory, creating new desires and new distresses, and the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Journalists are like dogs, whenever anything moves they begin to bark. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Just as a stream flows smoothly on as long as it encounters no obstruction, so the nature of man and animal is such that we never really notice or become conscious of what is agreeable to our will; if we are to notice something, our will has to have been thwarted, has to have experienced a shock of some kind. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Just as the largest library, badly arranged, is not so useful as a very moderate one that is well arranged, so the greatest amount of knowledge, if not elaborated by our own thoughts, is worth much less than a far smaller volume that has been abundantly and repeatedly thought over. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Just as the witticism brings two very different real objects under one concept, the pun brings two different concepts, by the assistance of accident, under one word. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Just remember, once you’re over the hill you begin to pick up speed. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Lack of the power to discriminate is no less evident in the sciences, namely in the tenacious life of false and refuted theories. Once come into general credit, they continue to defy truth for centuries. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Malebranche teaches that we see all things in God himself. This is certainly equivalent to explaining something unknown by something even more unknown. Moreover, according to him, we see not only all things in God, but God is also the sole activity therein, so that physical causes are so only apparently; they are merely occasional causes. ( Recherches de la vérité , Livre VI, seconde partie, chap. 3.) And so here we have essentially the pantheism of Spinoza who appears to have learned more from Malebranche than from Descartes. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Man is never happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which he thinks will make him so. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Man may have the most excellent judgment in all other matters, and yet go wrong in those which concern himself; because here the will comes in and deranges the intellect at once. Therefore let a man take counsel of a friend. A doctor can cure everyone but himself; if he falls ill, he sends for a colleague. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Man shows his character best in trifles. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Mankind cannot get on without a certain amount of absurdity. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Many books serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Many undoubtedly owe their good fortune to the circumstance that they possess a pleasing smile with which they win hearts. Yet these hearts would do better to beware and to learn from Hamlet’s tables that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Marrying means doing whatever possible to become repulsed of each other. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Marrying means to halve one’s rights and double one’s duties. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Marrying means, to grasp blindfolded into a sack hoping to find out an eel out of an assembly of snakes. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Means at our disposal should be regarded as a bulwark against the many evils and misfortunes that can occur. We should not regard such wealth as a permission or even an obligation to procure for ourselves the pleasures of the world. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Memory works like the collection glass in the Camera obscura: it gathers everything together and therewith produces a far more beautiful picture than was present originally.
Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Men are like children, in that, if you spoil them, they become naughty. Therefore it is well not to be too indulgent or charitable with anyone. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are the tormented souls. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Men best show their character in trifles where they are not on their guard. It is in the simplest habits that we often see the boundless egotism which pays no regard to the feelings of others and denies nothing to itself. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Men need some kind of external activity, because they are inactive within. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Money alone is absolutely good, because it is not only a concrete satisfaction of one need in particular; it is an abstract satisfaction of all. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Most men are so thoroughly subjective that nothing really interests them but themselves. They have no power left for forming an objective view of things… neither can they admit any validity in arguments which tell against their interest or their vanity. … They are so readily offended, insulted or annoyed, that in discussing any impersonal matter with them, no care is too great to avoid letting your remarks bear the slightest possible reference to the very worthy and sensitive individuals whom you have before you. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Mostly the loss teaches us only about the value of things. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Mostly, it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Music expresses only the quintessence of life and its events, never these themselves. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Music is the answer to the mystery of life. The most profound of all the arts, It expresses the deepest thoughts of life. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Music is the occult metaphysical exercise of a soul not knowing that it philosophizes. – Arthur Schopenhauer
National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Necessity is the constant scourge of the lower classes, ennui of the higher ones. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Night gives a black look to everything, whatever it may be. – Arthur Schopenhauer
No doubt, when modesty was made a virtue, it was a very advantageous thing for the fools, for everybody is expected to speak of himself as if he were one. – Arthur Schopenhauer
No greater mistake can be made than to imagine that what has been written latest is always the more correct; that what is written later on is an improvement on what was written previously; and that every change means progress. – Arthur Schopenhauer
No man ought to expect much from others, or, in general, from the external world. – Arthur Schopenhauer
No one can transcend their own individuality. – Arthur Schopenhauer
No one knows what capacities for doing and suffering he has in himself, until something comes to rouse them to activity: just as in a pond of still water, lying there like a mirror, there is no sign of the roar and thunder with which it can leap from the precipice, and yet remain what it is; or again, rise high in the air as a fountain. When water is as cold as ice, you can have no idea of the latent warmth contained in it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
No one writes anything worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject. – Arthur Schopenhauer
No rose without a thorn, but many a thorn without a rose. – Arthur Schopenhauer
No rose without a thorn. Yes, but many a thorn without a rose. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but also a disruption of thought. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Not to go to the theater is like making one’s toilet without a mirror. – Arthur Schopenhauer
NOT to my contemporaries, not to my compatriots but to mankind I commit my now completed work in the confidence that it will not be without value for them, even if this should be late recognised, as is commonly the lot of what is good. For it cannot have been for the passing generation, engrossed with the delusion of the moment, that my mind, almost against my will, has uninterruptedly stuck to its work through the course of a long life. preface to the second edition of “the world as will and representation”. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Nothing shocks our moral feelings so deeply as cruelty does. We can forgive every other crime, but not cruelty. The reason for this is that it is the very opposite of compassion. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Of a truth the first and foremost step in all knowledge of mankind is the conviction that a man’s conduct, taken as a whole, and in all its essential particulars, is not governed by his reason or by any of the resolutions which he may make in virtue of it. No man becomes this or that by wishing to be it, however earnestly. His acts proceed from his innate and unalterable character, and they are more immediately and particularly determined by motives. A man’s conduct, therefore, is the necessary product of both character and motive. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Of all the intellectual faculties, judgment is the last to mature. A child under the age of fifteen should confine its attention either to subjects like mathematics, in which errors of judgment are impossible, or to subjects in which they are not very dangerous, like languages, natural science, history, etc. – Arthur Schopenhauer
On the path of actions, great heart is the chief recommendation; on that works, a great head. – Arthur Schopenhauer
One can forget everything, everything, only not oneself, one’s own being. – Arthur Schopenhauer
One man is more concerned with the impression he makes on the rest of mankind, another with the impression the rest of mankind makes on him. – Arthur Schopenhauer
One should use common words to say uncommon things. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Only a male intellect clouded by the sexual drive could call the stunted, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged sex the fair sex. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the center of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Optimism is not only a false but also a pernicious doctrine, for it presents life as a desirable state and man’s happiness as its aim and object. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Ordinary people merely think how they shall ‘spend’ their time; a man of talent tries to ‘use’ it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Our civilized world is nothing but a great masquerade. You encounter knights, parsons, soldiers, doctors, lawyers, priests, philosophers and a thousand more: but they are not what they appear – they are merely masks… Usually, as I say, there is nothing but industrialists, businessmen and speculators concealed behind all these masks. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Our innate vanity, which is particularly sensitive in reference to our intellectual powers, will not suffer us to allow that our first position was wrong and our adversary’s right. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Our moral virtues benefit mainly other people; intellectual virtues, on the other hand, benefit primarily ourselves; therefore the former make us universally popular, the latter unpopular. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Patriotism is the passion of fools and the most foolish of passions. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors. – Arthur Schopenhauer
People of Wealth and the so called upper class suffer the most from boredom. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Perhaps in no form of knowledge is personal experience so indispensable as in learning to see that all things are unstable and transitory in this world. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Personal courage is really a very subordinate virtue-a virtue, indeed, in which we are surpassed by the lower animals; or else you would not hear people say, as brave as a lion. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Philosophy is a science, and as such, has no articles of faith. Accordingly, in it nothing can be assumed as existing except what is either positively given empirically, or demonstrated through indubitable conclusions. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Physics is unable to stand on its own feet, but needs a metaphysics on which to support itself, whatever fine airs it may assume towards the latter. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Pleasure is never as pleasant as we expected it to be and pain is always more painful. The pain in the world always outweighs the pleasure. If you don’t believe it, compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is eating the other. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Poetry is related to philosophy as experience is related to empirical science. Experience makes us acquainted with the phenomenon in the particular and by means of examples, science embraces the whole of phenomena by means of general conceptions. So poetry seeks to make us acquainted with the Platonic Ideas through the particular and by means of examples. Philosophy aims at teaching, as a whole and in general, the inner nature of things which expresses itself in these. One sees even here that poetry bears more the character of youth, philosophy that of old age. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Politeness is a tacit agreement that people’s miserable defects, whether moral or intellectual, shall on either side be ignored and not be made the subject of reproach. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Poverty and slavery are thus only two forms of the same thing, the essence of which is that a man’s energies are expended for the most part not on his own behalf but on that of others. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Pride is an established conviction of one’s own paramount worth in some particular respect, while vanity is the desire of rousing such a conviction in others, and it is generally accompanied by the secret hope of ultimately coming to the same conviction oneself. Pride works from within; it is the direct appreciation of oneself. Vanity is the desire to arrive at this appreciation indirectly, from without. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Pride is generally censured and decried, but mainly by those who have nothing to be proud of. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Pride works from within; it is the direct appreciation of oneself. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Pride works _from within_; it is the direct appreciation of oneself. Vanity is the desire to arrive at this appreciation indirectly, from without. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Rascals are always sociable, and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others’ company. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Rascals are always sociable, more’s the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others’ company. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Reason deserves to be called a prophet; for in showing us the consequence and effect of our actions in the present, does it not tell us what the future will be? – Arthur Schopenhauer
Reason is feminine in nature; it can only give after it has received. Of itself it has nothing but the empty forms of its operation. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Reasonable and vicious are quite consistent with each other, in fact, only through their union are great and far-reaching crimes possible – Arthur Schopenhauer
Rudeness is better than any argument; it totally eclipses intellect. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Sexual passion is the cause of war and the end of peace, the basis of what is serious… and consequently the concentration of all desire. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Shame on such a morality that is worthy of pariahs, and that fails to recognize the eternal essence that exists in every living thing, and shines forth with inscrutable significance from all eyes that see the sun! – Arthur Schopenhauer
Since there is more pain than pleasure on earth, every satisfaction is only transitory, creating new desires and new distresses; and the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death. – Arthur Schopenhauer
So if you have to live amongst men, you must allow everyone the right to exist in accordance with the character he has, whatever it turns out to be: and all you should strive to do is to make use of this character in such a way as its kind and nature permit, rather than to hope for any alteration in it, or to condemn it off-hand for what it is. This is the true sense of the maxim “Live and let live.” That, however, is a task that is difficult in proportion as it is right. – Arthur Schopenhauer
So the problem is not so much to see what nobody has yet seen, as to think what nobody has yet thought concerning that which everybody sees. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Sociability belongs to the most dangerous, even destructive inclinations, since it brings us into contact with beings the great majority of whom are morally bad and intellectually dull or perverted. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Solitude will be welcomed or endured or avoided, according as a man’s personal value is large or small. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Something of great importance now past is inferior to something of little importance now present, in that the latter is a reality, and related to the former as something to nothing. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Still, instead of trusting what their own minds tell them, men have as a rule a weakness for trusting others who pretend to supernatural sources of knowledge. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Still, it is possible for courage to be carried to an excess and to degenerate into rashness. It may even be said that some amount of fear is necessary, if we are to exist at all in the world, and cowardice is only the exaggerated form of it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Style is the physiognomy of the mind. It is more infallible than that of the body. To imitate the style of another is said to be wearing a mask. However beautiful it may be, it is through its lifelessness insipid and intolerable, so that even the most ugly living face is more engaging. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Style is what gives value and currency to thoughts. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Talent is able to achieve what is beyond other people’s capacity to achieve, yet not what is beyond their capacity of apprehension; therefore it at once finds its appreciators. The achievement of genius, on the other hand, transcends not only others’ capacity of achievement, but also their capacity of apprehension; therefore they do not become immediately aware of it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Talent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like the marksman who hits a target, as far as which others cannot even see. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Talent works for money and fame; the motive which moves genius to productivity is, on the other hand, less easy to determine. – Arthur Schopenhauer
That a god like Jehovah should have created this world of misery and woe, out of pure caprice, and because he enjoyed doing it, and should then have clapped his hands in praise of his own work, and declared everything to be very good-that will not do at all! – Arthur Schopenhauer
That arithmetic is the basest of all mental activities is proved by the fact that it is the only one that can be accomplished by a machine. – Arthur Schopenhauer
That I could clamber to the frozen moon. And draw the ladder after me. – Arthur Schopenhauer
That is why to attain something desired is to discover how vain it is; and why, though we live all our lives in expectation of better things, we often at the same time long regretfully for what is past. – Arthur Schopenhauer
That the outer man is a picture of the inner, and the face an expression and revelation of the whole character, is a presumption likely enough in itself, and therefore a safe one to go on; borne out as it is by the fact that people are always anxious to see anyone who has made himself famous. Photography offers the most complete satisfaction of our curiosity. – Arthur Schopenhauer
That we are so often deceived in others is not because our judgment is at fault, but because in general, … [to paraphrase Bacon,] trifles unconsciously bias us for or against a person from the very beginning. It may also be explained by our not abiding by the qualities which we really discover; we go on to conclude the presence of others which we think inseparable from them, or the absence of those which we consider incompatible. For instance, when we perceive generosity, we infer justice; from piety, we infer honesty; from lying, deception; from deception, stealing, etc.; a procedure which opens the door to many false views, partly because human nature is so strange, partly because our standpoint is so one-sided. It is true, indeed, that character always forms a consistent and connected whole; but the roots of all its qualities lie too deep to allow of our concluding from particular data in a given case whether certain qualities can or cannot exist together. – Arthur Schopenhauer
That which knows all things and is known by none is the subject. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The actual facts of morality are too much on my side for me to fear that my theory can ever be replaced or upset by any other. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The animal lacks both anxiety and hope because its consciousness is restricted to what is clearly evident and thus to the present moment: the animal is the present incarnate. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The appropriate form of address between man and man ought to be, not monsieur, sir, but fellow sufferer, compagnon de miseres. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The auspices for philosophy are bad if, when proceeding ostensibly on the investigation of truth, we start saying farewell to all uprightness, honesty and sincerity, and are intent only on passing ourselves off for what we are not. We then assume, like those three sophists [Fichte, Schelling and Hegel], first a false pathos, then an affected and lofty earnestness, then an air of infinite superiority, in order to impose where we despair of ever being able to convince. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The beard, being a half-mask, should be forbidden by the police – It is, moreover, as a sexual symbol in the middle of the face, obscene: that is why it pleases women. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The best consolation in misfortune or affliction of any kind will be the thought of other people who are in a still worse plight than yourself; and this is a form of consolation open to everyone. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body. – Arthur Schopenhauer
the brut first knows death when it dies, but man draws consciously nearer to it every hour that he lives; and this makes his life at times a questionable good even to him who has not recognised this character of constant annihilation in the whole of life. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The cause of laughter is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real project. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The charlatan takes very different shapes according to circumstances; but at bottom he is a man who cares nothing about knowledge for its own sake, and only strives to gain the semblance of it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise, he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The closing years of life are like a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The common man is not concerned about the passage of time, the man of talent is driven by it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The composer reveals the innermost nature of the world, and expresses the profoundest wisdom in a language that his reasoning faculty does not understand, just as a magnetic somnambulist gives information about things of which she has no conception when she is awake. Therefore in the composer, more than in any other artist, the man is entirely separate and distinct from the artist. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The conviction that the world and man is something that had better not have been, is of a kind to fill us with indulgence towards one another. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The conviction that the world, and therefore man too, is something which really ought not to exist is in fact calculated to instil in us indulgence towards one another—for what can be expected of beings placed in such a situation as we are? – Arthur Schopenhauer
The course of our individual life and the events in it, as far as their true meaning and connection is concerned, may be compared to a piece of rough mosaic. So long as you stand close in front of it, you cannot get a right view of the objects presented, nor perceive their significance or beauty. Both come in sight only when you stand a little way off. And in the same way you often understand the true connection of important events in your life, not while they are going on, nor soon after they are past, but only a considerable time afterwards. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The deep grief we feel at the loss of a friend arises from the feeling that in every individual there is something which no words can express, something which is peculiarly his own and therefore irreparable. Omne individuum ineffabile. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The eternal being…, as it lives in us, also lives in every animal. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The faculty for remembering is not diminished in proportion to what one has learnt, just as little as the number of moulds in which you cast sand lessens its capacity for being cast in new moulds. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The first rule for a good style is to have something to say; in fact, this in itself is almost enough. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The fly ought to be used as the symbol of impertinence and audacity, for whilst all other animals shun man more than anything else, and run away even before he comes near them, the fly lights upon his very nose. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The fourfold root of the principle of sufficent reason is “Anything perceived has a cause. All conclusions have premises. All effects have causes. All actions have motives. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The fruits of Christianity were religious wars, butcheries, crusades, inquisitions, extermination of the natives of America, and the introduction of African slaves in their place. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The fundamental defect of the female character is a lack of a sense of justice. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The general history of art and literature shows that the highest achievements of the human mind are, as a rule, not favourably received at first. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The greatest achievements of the human mind are generally received with distrust. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The greatest intellectual capacities are only found in connection with a vehement and passionate will. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The greatest wisdom is to make the enjoyment of the present the supreme object of life; because that is the only reality, all else being merely the play of thought. On the other hand, such a course might just as well be called the greatest folly: for that which in the next moment exists no more, and vanishes utterly, like a dream, can never be worth a serious effort. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The heavy armor becomes the light dress of childhood; the pain is brief, the joy unending. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The highest, most varied and lasting pleasures are those of the mind. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The inexpressible depth of music, so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain… Music expresses only the quintessence of life and its events, never these themselves. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The inexpressible depth of music—so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable—is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks for himself resemble a fine painting, where the light and shade are correct, the tone sustained. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The is the pleasure attached to a work of art of manuscript or even more manual labor; and of course the tougher the work, the greater the pleasure it will give. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The law of simplicity and naïveté applies to all fine art, for it is compatible with what is most sublime. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The less one, as a result of objective or subjective conditions, has to come into contact with people, the better off one is for it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The life of every individual is really always a tragedy, but gone through in detail, it has the character of a comedy. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The little honesty that exists among authors is discernible in the unconscionable way they misquote from the writings of others. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The little incidents and accidents of every day fill us with emotion, anxiety, annoyance, passion, as long as they are close to us, when they appear so big, so important, so serious; but as soon as they are borne down the restless stream of time they lose what significance they had; we think no more of them and soon forget them altogether. They were big only because they were near. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The majority of men… are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and… are not accessible to reason, but only to authority. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The man who goes up in a balloon does not feel as if he were ascending; he only sees the earth sinking deeper below him. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The man who sees two or three generations is like one who sits in the conjuror’s booth at a fair, and sees the same tricks two or three times. They are meant to be seen only once. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The memory should be specially taxed in youth, since it is then that it is strongest and most tenacious. But in choosing the things that should be committed to memory the utmost are and forethought must be exercised; as lessons well learnt in youth are never forgotten. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The moralists of Europe [have] pretended that beasts have no rights… a doctrine revolting/gross/barbarous… on which a native of the Asiatic uplands could not look without righteous horror. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The mother of useful arts is necessity; that of the fine arts is luxury. For father the former has intellect; the latter genius, which itself is a kind of luxury. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and slower it is in arriving at maturity. A man reaches the maturity of his reasoning powers and mental faculties hardly before the age of twenty-eight; a woman at eighteen. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The old woman dies, the burden is lifted. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The only freedom that exists is of a metaphysical character. In the physical world freedom is an impossibility. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The poet presents the imagination with images from life and human characters and situations, sets them all in motion and leaves it to the beholder to let these images take his thoughts as far as his mental powers will permit. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The present is the only reality and the only certainty. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The present, on the other hand, is regarded as something quite temporary and serving only as the road to our goal. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The principle of contradiction establishes merely the agreement of concepts, but does not itself produce concepts. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The problem with Germans is that they look in the clouds for what lies at their feet. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The progress of life shows a man the stuff of which he is made. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The real meaning of persona is a mask, such as actors were accustomed to wear on the ancient stage; and it is quite true that no one shows himself as he is, but wears his mask and plays his part. Indeed, the whole of our social arrangements may be likened to a perpetual comedy; and this is why a man who is worth anything finds society so insipid, while a blockhead is quite at home in it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The reason domestic pets are so lovable and so helpful to us is because they enjoy, quietly and placidly, the present moment. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The scenes and events of long ago, and the persons who took part in them, wear a charming aspect to the eye of memory, which sees only the outlines and takes no note of disagreeable details. The present enjoys no such advantage, and so it always seems defective. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The scenes in our life resemble pictures in a rough mosaic; they are ineffective from close up, and have to be viewed from a distance if they are to seem beautiful. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The tallest oak tree once was an acorn that any pig could have swallowed. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The ultimate foundation of honor is the conviction that moral character is unalterable: a single bad action implies that future actions of the same kind will, under similar circumstances, also be bad. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The Universe is a dream dreamed by a single dreamer where all the dream characters dream too. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The weakness of their reasoning faculty also explains why women show more sympathy for the unfortunate than men;… and why, on the contrary, they are inferior to men as regards justice, and less honourable and conscientious. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The will is the strong blind man who carries on his shoulders the lame man who can see. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The world is not a factory and animals are not products for our use – Arthur Schopenhauer
them worth communicating, while the second kind need money and consequently write for money. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There are 80,000 prostitutes in London alone and what are they, if not bloody sacrifices on the altar of monogamy? – Arthur Schopenhauer
There are many persons who are trained to be strictly honorable in regard to one particular matter, while they have little honor to boast of in anything else. Many a man, for instance, will not steal your money; but he will lay hands on everything of yours that he can enjoy without having to pay for it. A man of business will often deceive you without the slightest scruple, but he will absolutely refuse to commit a theft. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There are two things which make it impossible to believe that this world is the successful work of an all-wise, all-good, and at the same time, all-powerful being; firstly, the misery which abounds in it everywhere; and secondly, the obvious imperfection of its highest product, man, who is a burlesque of what he should be. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There are very few who can think, but every man wants to have an opinion; and what remains but to take it ready-made from others, instead of forming opinions for himself? – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is a wide difference between the original thinker and the merely learned man. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is direct pleasure seeing what grows under one’s hands day by day, until at last it is finished. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is in the world only the choice between loneliness and vulgarity. All young people should be taught now to put up with loneliness … because the less man is compelled to come into contact with others, the better off he is. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is more to be learnt from every page of David Hume than from the collected philosophical works of Hegel, Herbart, and Schleiermacher are taken together. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is no dog so bad but that he will wag his tail. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is no vice of which a man can be guilty, no meanness, no shabbiness, no unkindness, which excites so much indignation among his contemporaries, friends and neighbours, as his success. This is the one unpardonable crime, which reason cannot defend, nor humility mitigate. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is not a grain of dust, not an atom that can become nothing, yet man believes that death is the annhilation of his being. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is not much to get anywhere in the world. It is filled with misery and pain. If a man escapes these, boredom lies in wait for him at every corner. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is one respect in which beasts show real wisdom… their quiet, placid enjoyment of the present moment. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is only one healing force, and that is nature; in pills and ointments there is none. At most they can give the healing force of nature a hint about where there is something for it to do. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is only one inborn error, and that is the notion that we exist in order to be happy. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the world as a kind of Hell, and in confining one’s efforts to securing a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is something in us that is wiser than our head. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Therefore we should always be glad of it and give it the welcome it deserves, and enjoy every hour that is bearable by its freedom from pain and annoyance with a full consciousness of its value. – Arthur Schopenhauer
They tell us that Suicide is the greatest piece of Cowardice… That Suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in this world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person. – Arthur Schopenhauer
This actual world of what is knowable, in which we are and which is in us, remains both the material and the limit of our consideration. – Arthur Schopenhauer
This is the case with many learned persons; they have read themselves stupid. – Arthur Schopenhauer
This our world, which is so real, with all its suns and milky ways is—nothing. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Thus also every keen pleasure is an error and an illusion, for no attained wish can give lasting satisfaction – Arthur Schopenhauer
Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To attain something desired is to discover how vain it is; and though we live all our lives in expectation of better things, we often at the same time long regretfully for what is past. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To attain something desired is to discover how vain it is; and…though we live all our lives in expectation of better things, we often at the same time long regretfully for what is past. The present, on the other hand, is regarded as something quite temporary and serving only as the road to our goal. That is why most men discover when they look back on their life that they have the whole time been living ad interim, and are surprised to see that which they let go by so unregarded and unenjoyed was precisely their life, was precisely in expectation of which they lived. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To be shocked at how deeply rejection hurts is to ignore what acceptance involves. We must never allow our suffering to be compounded by suggestions that there is something odd in suffering so deeply. There would be something amiss if we didn’t. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To be shocked at how deeply rejection hurts is to ignore what acceptance involves. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To become indignant at [people’s] conduct is as foolish as to be angry with a stone because it rolls into your path. And with many people the wisest thing you can do, is to resolve to make use of those whom you cannot alter. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To become reconciled to a friend with whom you have broken, is a form of weakness; and you pay the penalty of it when he takes the first opportunity of doing precisely the very thing which brought about the breach. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To call the world God is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To conceal a want of real ideas, many make for themselves an imposing apparatus of long compound words, intricate flourishes and phrases, new and unheard-of expressions, all of which together furnish an extremely difficult jargon that sounds very learned. Yet with all this they say-precisely nothing. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To desire immortality for the individual is really the same as wanting to perpetuate an error forever. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To desire immortality is to desire the eternal perpetuation of a great mistake. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To expect a man to retain everything that he has ever read is like expecting him to carry about in his body everything that he has ever eaten. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To feel envy is human, to savor ‘schadenfreude’ is devilish. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To find out your real opinion of someone, judge the impression you have when you first see a letter from them. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To forgive and forget means to throw away dearly bought experiences. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To form a judgment intuitively is the privilege of few; authority and example lead the rest of the world. They see with the eyes of others, they hear with the ears of others. Therefore it is very easy to think as all the world now think; but to think as all the world will think thirty years hence is not in the power of every one. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To gain anything we have longed for is only to discover how vain and empty it is; and even though we are always living in expectation of better things, at the same time we often repent and long to have the past back again. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To repeat abstractly, universally, and distinctly in concepts the whole inner nature of the world , and thus to deposit it as a reflected image in permanent concepts always ready for the faculty of reason , this and nothing else is philosophy. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To use many words to communicate few thoughts is everywhere the unmistakable sign of mediocrity. To gather much thought into few words stamps the man of genius. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Today it is bad, and day by day it will get worse―until at last the worst of all arrives. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first. – Arthur Schopenhauer
True brevity of expression consists in a man only saying what is worth saying, while avoiding all diffuse explanations of things which every one can think out for himself. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Two Chinamen visiting Europe went to the theatre for the first time. One of them occupied himself with trying to understand the theatrical machinery, which he succeeded in doing. The other, despite his ignorance of the language, sought to unravel the meaning of the play. The former is like the astronomer, the latter the philosopher. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Vedas are the most rewarding and the most elevating book which can be possible in the world. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Vengeance taken will often tear the heart and torment the conscience. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Virtue is as little to be acquired by learning as genius; nay, the idea is barren, and is only to be employed as an instrument, in the same way as genius in respect to art. It would be as foolish to expect that our moral and ethical systems would turn out virtuous, noble, and holy beings, as that our aesthetic systems would produce poets, painters, and musicians. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Vulgar people take huge delight in the faults and follies of great men. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher who chooses out first one and then another for his prey. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We are not always able to form new ideas about; our surroundings, or to command original thoughts: they come if they will, and when they will. And so, too, we cannot always succeed in completely considering some personal matter at the precise time at which we have determined beforehand to consider it, and just when we set ourselves to do so. For the peculiar train of thought that is favorable to it may suddenly become active without any special call being made upon it, and we may then follow it up with keen interest. In this way reflection, too, chooses its own time. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We can do what we wish, but we can only wish what we must. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We deceive and flatter no one by such delicate artificies as we do our own selves. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We find that a man is always measured by the office he holds, or by his occupation, nationality, or family relations—in a word, by the position and character which have been assigned him in the conventional arrangements of life, where he is ticketed and treated as so much goods. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We grope about in the labyrinth of our life and in the obscurity of our investigations; bright moments illuminate our path like flashes of lightning. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We live through our days of happiness without noticing them; it is only when evil comes upon us that we wish them back. A thousand gay and pleasant hours are wasted in ill-humor; we let them slip by unenjoyed, and sigh for them in vain when the sky is overcast. Those present moments that are bearable, be they never so trite and common,—passed by in indifference, or, it may be, impatiently pushed away,—those are the moments we should honor; never failing to remember that the ebbing tide is even how hurrying them into the past, where memory will store them transfigured and shining with an imperishable light,—in some after-time, and above all, when our days are evil, to raise the veil and present them as the object of our fondest regret. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We may divide thinkers into those who think for themselves and those who think through others. The latter are the rule and the former the exception. The first are original thinkers in a double sense, and egotists in the noblest meaning of the word. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We must never allow our suffering to be compounded by suggestions that there is something odd in suffering so deeply. There would be something amiss if we didn’t.
We seldom speak of what we have but often of what we lack. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We seldom think of what we have but always of what we lack. Therefore, rather than grateful, we are bitter. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We should be much less ready to lose our temper over an insult… if, on the one hand, we have not such an exaggerated estimate of our value and dignity… and, on the other hand, if we had arrived at any clear notion of the judgment which, in his heart, one man generally passes upon another. If most people resent the slightest hint that any blame attaches to them, you may imagine their feelings if they were to overhear what their acquaintance say about them. You should never lose sight of the fact that ordinary politeness is only a grinning mask: if it shifts its place a little, or is removed for a moment, there is no use raising a hue and cry. When a man is downright rude, it is as though he had taken off all his clothes, and stood before you in puris naturalibus [naked]. Like most men in this condition, he does not present a very attractive appearance. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We should be surprised that a matter that generally plays such an important part in the life of man has hitherto been almost entirely disregarded by philosophers, and lies before us as raw and untreated material. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We should comfort ourselves with the masterpieces of art as with exalted personages-stand quietly before them and wait till they speak to us. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We think that at every moment we are masters of our actions; but if we look back on the course of our lives and in particular bear in mind our unfortunate steps together with their consequences, we often do not understand how we could do this or omit to do that, so that it looks as if a stranger power has guided our steps. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We will gradually become indifferent to what goes on in the minds of other people when we acquire a knowledge of the superficial nature of their thoughts—the narrowness of their views and of the number of their errors. Whoever attaches a lot of value to the opinions of others pays them too much honor. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Wealth is like sea-water—the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Were an Asiatic to ask me for a definition of Europe, I should be forced to answer him: It is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing, and that his present birth is his first entrance into life. – Arthur Schopenhauer
What a man can do and suffer is unknown to himself till some occasion presents itself which draws out the hidden power. Just as one sees not in the water of an unruffled pond the fury and roar with which it can dash down a steep rock without injury to itself, or how high it is capable of rising; or as little as one can suspect the latent heat in ice-cold water. – Arthur Schopenhauer
What a man is: that is to say, personality, in the widest sense of the word; under which are included health, strength, beauty, temperament, moral character, intelligence, and education. – Arthur Schopenhauer
What a person is for himself, what abides with him in his loneliness and isolation, and what no one can give or take away from him, this is obviously more essential for him than everything that he possesses or what he may be in the eyes of others. – Arthur Schopenhauer
What makes people hard-hearted is this, that each man has, or fancies he has, as much as he can bear in his own troubles. – Arthur Schopenhauer
What now on the other hand makes people sociable is their incapacity to endure solitude and thus themselves. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Whatever folly men commit, be their shortcomings or their vices what they may, let us exercise forbearance; remember that when these faults appear in others it is our follies and vices that we behold. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Whatever torch we kindle, and whatever space it may illuminate, our horizon will always remain encircled by the depth of night. – Arthur Schopenhauer
When a man has reached a condition in which he believes that a thing must happen because he does not wish it, and that what he wishes to happen never will be, this is really the state called desperation. – Arthur Schopenhauer
When, for instance, a great many people are gathered together and presented with some objective interest which works upon all alike and influences them in a similar way, no matter what it be—a common danger or hope, some great news, a spectacle, a play, a piece of music, or anything of that kind—you will find them roused to a mutual expression of thought, and a display of sincere interest. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends, finally, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our consciousness and what we compare it to – better and we envious and sad, worse and we feel grateful and happy. – Arthur Schopenhauer
While rank and riches may always reckon upon deferential treatment in society, that is something which intellectual ability can never expect. – Arthur Schopenhauer
whoever attributes no merit to himself because he really has none is not modest, but merely honest. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Whoever heard me assert that the grey cat playing just now in the yard is the same one that did jumps and tricks there five hundred years ago will think whatever he likes of me, but it is a stranger form of madness to imagine that the present-day cat is fundamentally an entirely different one. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Whoever wants his judgment to be believed, should express it coolly and dispassionately; for all vehemence springs from the will. And so the judgment might be attributed to the will and not to knowledge, which by its nature is cold. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Why is it that in spite of all the mirrors in the world, no one really knows what he looks like? – Arthur Schopenhauer
Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Will without intellect is the most vulgar and common thing in the world, possessed by every blockhead, who, in the gratification of his passions, shows the stuff of which he is made. – Arthur Schopenhauer
With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent, it is hypocrisy. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Women remain children all their lives, for they always see only what is near at hand, cling to the present, take the appearance of a thing for reality, and prefer trifling matters to the most important. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Writers may be classified as meteors, planets, and fixed stars. They belong not to one system, one nation only, but to the universe. And just because they are so very far away, it is usually many years before their light is visible to the inhabitants of this earth. – Arthur Schopenhauer
You are free to do what you want, but you are not free to want what you want. – Arthur Schopenhauer
You must treat a work of art like a great man: stand before it and wait patiently till it deigns to speak. – Arthur Schopenhauer
You will hardly ever see two people exactly in the same frame of mind; for that is something which varies with their condition of life, occupation, surroundings, health, the train of thought they are in at the moment, and so on. These differences give rise to discord between persons of the most harmonious disposition. To correct the balance properly, so as to remove the disturbance—to introduce, as it were, a uniform temperature—is a work demanding a very high degree of culture. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes on Existence
A man finds himself, to his great astonishment, suddenly existing after thousands and thousands of years of non-existence. He lives for a little while, and then again, comes an equally long period when he must exist no more. The heart rebels against this, and feels that it cannot be true. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Consciousness makes the individual careful to maintain his own existence; and if this were not so, there would be no surety for the preservation of the species. From all this it is clear that individuality is not a form of perfection, but rather a limitation; and so to be freed from it is not loss but gain. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every new born being indeed comes fresh and blithe into the new existence, and enjoys it as a free gift: but there is, and can be, nothing freely given. It’s fresh existence is paid for by the old age and death of a worn out existence which has perished, but which contained the indestructible seed out of which the new existence has arisen: they are one being. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every state of welfare, every feeling of satisfaction, is negative in its character; that is to say, it consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of existence. – Arthur Schopenhauer
How very paltry and limited the normal human intellect is, and how little lucidity there is in the human consciousness, may be judged from the fact that, despite the ephemeral brevity of human life, the uncertainty of our existence and the countless enigmas which press upon us from all sides, everyone does not continually and ceaselessly philosophize, but that only the rarest of exceptions do. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Human existence is an error…it is bad today and every day it gets worse, until the worst happens. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood? – Arthur Schopenhauer
Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment – a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man’s existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The actual life of a thought lasts only until it reaches the point of speech…As soon as our thinking has found words it ceases to be sincere…When it begins to exist in others it ceases to live in us, just as the child severs itself from its mother when it enters into its own existence. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The vanity of existence is revealed in the whole form existence assumes: in the infiniteness of time and space contrasted with the finiteness of the individual in both; in the fleeting present as the sole form in which actuality exists; in the contingency and relativity of all things; in continual becoming without being; in continual desire without satisfaction; in the continual frustration of striving of which life consists. . . Time is that by virtue of which everything becomes nothingness in our hands and loses all real value. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is only one inborn erroneous notion … that we exist in order to be happy … So long as we persist in this inborn error … the world seems to us full of contradictions. For at every step, in great things and small, we are bound to experience that the world and life are certainly not arranged for the purpose of maintaining a happy existence … hence the countenances of almost all elderly persons wear the expression of … disappointment. – Arthur Schopenhauer
This world could not have been the work of an all-loving being, but that of a devil, who had brought creatures into existence in order to delight in the sight of their sufferings. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes On Religion
A man cannot serve two masters: so it is either reason or the scriptures. – Arthur Schopenhauer
All religions promise a reward beyond life, in eternity, for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding. – Arthur Schopenhauer
But it is common knowledge that religions don’t want conviction on the basis of reasons; but faith, on the basis of revelation. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For, as you know, religions are like glow-worms; they shine only when it is dark. – Arthur Schopenhauer
I have described religion as the metaphysics of the people. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If, while hurrying ostensibly to the temple of truth, we hand the reins over to our personal interests which look aside at very different guiding stars, for instance at the tastes and foibles of our contemporaries, at the established religion, but in particular at the hints and suggestions of those at the head of affairs, then how shall we ever reach the high, precipitous, bare rock whereon stands the temple of truth? – Arthur Schopenhauer
Let us see rather that like Janus—or better, like Yama, the Brahmin god of death—religion has two faces, one very friendly, one very gloomy. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are the tormented souls. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods, that razing of Indian temples and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun 3,000 years: just because a jealous god had said, ‘Thou shalt make no graven image.’ – Arthur Schopenhauer
Our religions will never at any time take root; the ancient wisdom of the human race will not be supplanted by the events in Galilee. On the contrary, Indian wisdom flows back to Europe, and will produce a fundamental change in our knowledge and thought. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Pantheism is only a polite form of atheism. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Philosophy of religion really amounts to philosophizing on certain favorite assumptions that are not confirmed at all. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Religion is the metaphysics of the masses. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Religions are the children of ignorance, and they do not long survive their mother. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The bad thing about all religions is that, instead of being able to confess their allegorical nature, they have to conceal it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The eternal being which, as it lives in us, also lives in every animal… the animal is in essence absolutely the same thing that we are. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To call the world God is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes on Life
A good supply of resignation is of the first importance in providing for the journey of life. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A happy life is impossible; the best that a man can attain is a heroic life. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man must have grown old and lived long in order to see how short life is. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man never is happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which he thinks will make him so; he seldom attains his goal, and when he does, it is only to be disappointed; he is mostly shipwrecked in the end, and comes into harbor with mast and rigging gone. And then, it is all one whether he has been happy or miserable; for his life was never anything more than a present moment always vanishing; and now it is over. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred. Evening is like old age: we are languid, talkative, silly. Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Do not shorten the morning by getting up late; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every time a man is begotten and born, the clock of human life is wound up anew to repeat once more its same old tune that has already been played innumerable times, movement by movement and measure by measure, with insignificant variations. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For everyday life, genius is as useful as a giant telescope in the theater. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Human life must be some kind of mistake. The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only remember that man is a compound of needs and necessities hard to satisfy; and that even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness, where nothing remains to him but abandonment to boredom. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Human life, like all inferior goods, is covered on the outside with a false glitter; what suffers always conceals itself. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If life — the craving for which is the very essence of our being — were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If life—the craving for which is the very essence of our being—were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all. Mere existence would satisfy us in itself and we should want for nothing. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If people insist that honor is dearer than life itself, what they really mean is that existence and well-being are as nothing compared with other people’s opinions. Of course, this may be only an exaggerated way of stating the prosaic truth that reputation, that is, the opinion others have of us, is indispensable if we are to make any progress in the world. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If the immediate and direct purpose of our life is not suffering, then our existence is the most ill-adapted to its purpose in the world. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If two men who were friends in their youth meet again when they are old, after being separated for a life-time, the chief feeling they will have at the sight of each other will be one of complete disappointment at life as a whole; because their thoughts will be carried back to that earlier time when life seemed so fair as it lay spread out before them in the rosy light of dawn, promised so much — and then performed so little. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If we were not all of us exaggeratedly interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that no one could endure it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theater before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a blessing that we do not know what is really going to happen. Could we foresee it, there are times when children might seem like innocent prisoners, condemned, not to death, but to life, and as yet all unconscious of what their sentence means. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In our early youth we sit before the life that lies ahead of us like children sitting before the curtain in a theatre, in happy and tense anticipation of whatever is going to appear. Luckily we do not know what really will appear. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Life is a business that does not cover the costs. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Life is a constant process of dying. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Life is a game of dice. Even if you don’t throw the number you like, you still have to play it and play it well. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Life is a language in which certain truths are conveyed to us; if we could learn them in some other way, we should not live. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Life is a task to be done. It is a fine thing to say defunctus est; it means that the man has done his task. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Life is deeply steeped in suffering and cannot escape from it; our entrance into it takes place amid tears, at bottom its course is always tragic, and its end is even more so. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Life is full of troubles and vexations that one must either rise above it by means of corrected thoughts, or leave it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Life is neither to be wept over nor to be laughed at but to be understood. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Life is one long battle; we have to fight at every step; and Voltaire very rightly says that if we succeed [in this world], it is at the point of the sword, and that we die with the weapon in our hand. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Life is short and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Life presents itself first and foremost as a task—the task of maintaining itself, the task of earning one’s living. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Life to the great majority is only a constant struggle for mere existence, with the certainty of losing it at last. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Life without pain has no meaning. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Nothing at all rides on the life or death of the individual. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Nothing in life gives a man so much courage as the attainment or renewal of the conviction that other people regard him with favor; because it means that everyone joins to give him help and protection, which is an infinitely stronger bulwark against the ills of life than anything he can do himself. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Our first ideas of life are generally taken from fiction rather than fact. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Our life is a loan received from death with sleep as the daily interest on this loan. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Our whole life it is the present and the present alone that we actually possess. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life. – Arthur Schopenhauer
That human life must be some kind of mistake is sufficiently proved by the simple observation that man is a compound of needs which are hard to satisfy; that their satisfaction achieves nothing but a painless condition in which he is only given over to boredom . – Arthur Schopenhauer
The actual life of a thought lasts only until it reaches the point of speech. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The first forty years of our life give the text, the next thirty furnish the commentary upon it, which enables us rightly to understand the true meaning and connection of the text with its moral and its beauties. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks for himself resemble a fine painting, where the light and shade are correct, the tone sustained, the color perfectly harmonized; it is true to life. On the other hand, the intellectual attainments of the mere man of learning are like a large palette, full of all sorts of colors, which at most are systematically arranged, but devoid of harmony, connection and meaning. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The life of an individual is a constant struggle, and not merely a metaphorical one against want or boredom, but also an actual struggle against other people. He discovers adversaries everywhere, lives in continual conflict and dies with sword in hand. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The life of every individual, viewed as a whole and in general, and when only its most significant features are emphasized, is really a tragedy; but gone through in detail it has the character of a comedy. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The ordinary method of education is to imprint ideas and opinions, in the strict sense of the word, prejudices, on the mind of the child, before it has had any but a very few particular observations. It is thus that he afterwards comes to view the world and gather experience through the medium of those ready-made ideas, rather than to let his ideas be formed for him out of his own experience of life, as they ought to be. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The poet presents the imagination with images from life and human characters and situations, sets them all in motion and leaves itto the beholder to let these images take his thoughts as far as his mental powers will permit. This is why he is able to engage men of the most differing capabilities, indeed fools and sages together. The philosopher, on the other hand, presents not life itself but the finished thoughts which he has abstracted from it and then demands that the reader should think precisely as, and precisely as far as, he himself thinks. That is why his public is so small. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The scenes of our life are like pictures done in rough mosaic. Looked at close, they produce no effect. There is nothing beautiful to be found in them, unless you stand some distance off. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The shortness of life, so often lamented, may be the best thing about it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The study is difficult enough in itself; but the difficulty is doubled by novels, which represent a state of things in life and the world, such as, in fact, does not exist. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over. – Arthur Schopenhauer
They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice—that suicide is wrong, when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in this world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person. – Arthur Schopenhauer
This is direct proof that existence has no real value in itself; for what is boredom but the feeling of the emptiness of life? – Arthur Schopenhauer
We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We must set limits to our wishes, curb our desires, moderate our anger, always remembering that an individual can attain only an infinitesimal share in anything that is worth having; and that on the other hand, everyone must incur many of the ills of life. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We see in tragedy the noblest men, after a long conflict and suffering, finally renounce forever all the pleasure of life and the aims till then pursued so keenly, or cheerfully and willingly give up life itself. – Arthur Schopenhauer
What give all that is tragic, whatever its form, the characteristic of the sublime, is the first inkling of the knowledge that the world and life can give no satisfaction, and are not worth our investment in them. The tragic spirit consists in this. Accordingly it leads to resignation. – Arthur Schopenhauer
When you look back on your life, it looks as though it were a plot, but when you are into it, it’s a mess: just one surprise after another. Then, later, you see it was perfect. – Arthur Schopenhauer
When, in some dreadful and ghastly dream, we reach the moment of greatest horror, it awakes us; thereby banishing all the hideous shapes that were born of the night. And life is a dream: when the moment of greatest horror compels us to break it off, the same thing happens. – Arthur Schopenhauer
You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer Quotes on Death
A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner. Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection. – Arthur Schopenhauer
After your death, you will be what you were before your birth. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Animals hear about death for the first time when they die. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Animals learn death first at the moment of death;…man approaches death with the knowledge it is closer every hour, and this creates a feeling of uncertainty over his life, even for him who forgets in the business of life that annihilation is awaiting him. It is for this reason chiefly that we have philosophy and religion. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Death is the true inspiring genius, or the muse of philosophy, wherefore Socrates has defined the latter as θανάτου μελέτη. Indeed without death men would scarcely philosophise. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Each day is a little life. Every waking and rising a little birth. Every fresh morning a little youth. Every going to rest and sleep a little death. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every parting gives a foretaste of death; every remeeting a foretaste of the resurrection. That is why even people who are indifferent to each other rejoice so much if they meet again after twenty or thirty years of separation. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every parting gives a foretaste of death; every reunion a hint of the resurrection. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every parting is a foretaste of death, and every reunion a foretaste of resurrection. – Arthur Schopenhauer
How shall a man be proud, when his conception is a crime, his birth a penalty, his life a labour, and death a necessity! – Arthur Schopenhauer
I believe that when death closes our eyes we shall awaken to a light, of which our sunlight is but the shadow. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It’s the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is, in every individual, something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is not much to be got anywhere in the world. It is filled with misery and pain. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To be alone is the fate of all great minds—a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We look upon the present as something to be put up with while it lasts, and serving only as the way towards our goal. Hence most people, if they glance back when they come to the end of life, will find that all along they have been living ad interim: they will be surprised to find that the very thing they disregarded and let slip by unenjoyed, was just the life in the expectation of which they passed all their time. Of how many a man may it not be said that hope made a fool of him until he danced into the arms of death! – Arthur Schopenhauer
We may come to look upon the death of our enemies and adversaries, even long after it has occurred, with just as much regret as we feel for that of our friends, viz., when we miss them as witnesses of our brilliant success. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer Quotes on Happiness
A sense of humour is the only divine quality of man. – Arthur Schopenhauer
All satisfaction, or what is commonly called happiness, is really and essentially always negative only, and never positive. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people. There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Deceptive images of a vague happiness hover before us in our dreams, and we search in vain for their original. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour. – Arthur Schopenhauer
For, after all, the foundation of our whole nature, and, therefore, of our happiness, is our physique, and the most essential factor in happiness is health, and, next in importance after health, the ability to maintain ourselves in independence and freedom from care. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Gaiety alone, as it were, is the hard cash of happiness; everything else is just a promissory note. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to chance. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Happiness consists in frequent repetition of pleasure. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Happiness of any given life is to be measured, not by its joys and pleasures, but by the extent to which it has been free from suffering-from positive evil. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If a relationship is perfectly natural there will be a complete fusion of the happiness of both of you-owing to fellow-feeling and various other laws which govern our natures, this is, quite simply, the greatest happiness that can exist. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Men are a thousand times more intent on becoming rich than on acquiring culture, though it is quite certain that what a man IS contributes more to his happiness than what he HAS. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Money is human happiness in the abstract: he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete, devotes his heart entirely to money. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Money is never spent to so much advantage as when you have been cheated out of it; for at one stroke you have purchased prudence. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Optimism is not only a false but also a pernicious doctrine, for it presents life as a desirable state and man’s happiness as its aim and object. Starting from this, everyone then believes he has the most legitimate claim to happiness and enjoyment. If, as usually happens, these do not fall to his lot, he believes that he suffers an injustice, in fact that he misses the whole point of his existence. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Other people’s heads are too wretched a place for true happiness to have its seat. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The happiness of any given life is to be measured not by its joys and pleasures, but by the extent to which it has been free from suffering, from positive evil. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The happiness which we receive from ourselves is greater than that which we obtain from our surroundings. . . . The world in which a person lives shapes itself chiefly by the way in which he or she looks at it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The young should early be trained to bear being left alone; for it is a source of happiness and peace of mind. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame. – Arthur Schopenhauer
What a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has or how he is regarded by others. – Arthur Schopenhauer
What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction. Deceptive images of a vague happiness hover before us in our dreams, and we search in vain for their original. Much would have been gained if, through timely advice and instruction, young people could have had eradicated from their minds the erroneous notion that the world has a great deal to offer them. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Whatever one may say, the happiest moment of the happy man is the moment… falling asleep, and the unhappiest moment of the unhappy that of his awaking. – Arthur Schopenhauer
With health, everything is a source of pleasure; without it, nothing else, whatever it may be, is enjoyable… Health is by far the most important element in human happiness. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes On Fate
A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age, if it only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner, nor with his fate if the corner granted him allows him to follow his vocation without having to think about other people. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Fate soon teaches us, in a rough and ready way, that we really possess nothing at all, but that everything in the world is at its command. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It’s the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The best consolation in misfortune or affliction of any kind will be the thought of other people who are in a still worse plight than yourself; and this is a form of consolation open to every one. But what an awful fate this means for mankind as a whole! We are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher, who chooses out first one and then another for his prey. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There is not much to be got anywhere in the world. It is filled with misery and pain; if a man escapes these, boredeom lies in wait for him at every corner. Nay more; it is evil which generally has the upper hand, and folly that makes the most noise. Fate is cruel and mankind pitiable. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To be alone is the fate of all great minds—a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils. – Arthur Schopenhauer
What people commonly call Fate is, as a general rule, nothing but their own stupid and foolish conduct. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes On Love
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free. – Arthur Schopenhauer
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Faith is like love, it cannot be forced. Therefore it is a dangerous operation if an attempt be made to introduce or bind it by state regulations; for, as the attempt to force love begets hatred, so also to compel religious belief produces rank unbelief. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Faith is like love—it does not let itself be forced. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If a man does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one’s rights and double one’s duties. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The word of man is the most durable of all material. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Where there is no love, a person’s faithfulness to the marriage bond is probably against nature. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes on Truth
All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; Third, it is accepted as self-evident. – Arthur Schopenhauer
As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself; because only through ordering what you know by comparing every truth with every other truth can you take complete possession of your knowledge and get it into your power. You can think about only what you know, so you ought to learn something; on the other hand, you can know only what you have thought about. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every truth passes through 3 stages before it is recognized 1)ridicule 2) opposition 3) accepted as self-evident. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self-evident. – Arthur Schopenhauer
First the truth is ridiculed. Then it meets outrage. Then it is said to have been obvious all along. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If human nature were not base, but thoroughly honorable, we should, in every debate, have no other aim than the discovery of truth. We should not, in the least, care whether the truth proved to be in favour of the opinion which we had begun by expressing, or of the opinion of our adversary. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In truth the most striking figure for the relation of the two is that of the strong blind man carrying the sighted lame man on his shoulders. – Arthur Schopenhauer
It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Life is short and truth works far and lives long. Let us speak the truth. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance of things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The interest in truth, which may be presumed to have been their only motive when they stated the proposition alleged to be true, now gives way to the interests of vanity; and so, for the sake of vanity, what is true must seem false, and what is false must seem true. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The truth can wait, for it lives a long life. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The truth is that when an author begins to write for the sake of covering paper, he is cheating the reader; because he writes under the pretext that he has something to say. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There are three stages in the revelation of truth. The first is to be ridiculed, the second is to be resisted and the third is to be considered self-evident. – Arthur Schopenhauer
There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject’s sake, and those who write for writing’s sake. […] The truth is that when an author begins to write for the sake of covering paper, he is cheating the reader; because he writes under the pretext that he has something to say. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To free a man from error is to give, not to take away. Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth. Error always does harm; sooner or later it will bring mischief to the man who harbors it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To truth only a brief celebration of victory is allowed between the two long periods during which it is condemned as paradoxical, or disparaged as trivial. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Truth is most beautiful undraped. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Truth is no harlot who throws her arms round the neck of him who does not desire her. On the contrary, she is so coy a beauty that even the man who sacrifices everything to her can still not be certain of her favors. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Truth that has been merely learned is like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a waxen nose; at best, like a nose made out of another’s flesh; it adheres to us only ‘because it is put on. But truth acquired by thinking of our own is like a natural limb; it alone really belongs to us. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Truth that is naked is the most beautiful, and the simpler its expression the deeper is the impression it makes; this is partly because it gets unobstructed hold of the hearer’s mind without his being distracted by secondary thoughts, and partly because he feels that here he is not being corrupted or deceived by the arts of rhetoric, but that the whole effect is got from the thing itself. – Arthur Schopenhauer
We seldom think of what we have, but always of what we lack. – Arthur Schopenhauer
When a new truth enters the world, the first stage of reaction to it is ridicule, the second stage is violent opposition, and in the third stage, that truth comes to be regarded as self-evident. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer Quotes on Reading
A book can never be anything more than the impression of its author’s thoughts. The value of these thoughts lies either in the matter about which he has thought, or in the form in which he develops his matter — that is to say, what he has thought about it. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Any book which is at all important should be re-read immediately. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Books are humanity in print. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents. – Arthur Schopenhauer
However, for the man who studies to gain insight, books and studies are merely rungs of the ladder on which he climbs to the summit of knowledge. As soon as a rung has raised him up one step, he leaves it behind. On the other hand, the many who study in order to fill their memory do not use the rungs of the ladder for climbing, but take them off and load themselves with them to take away, rejoicing at the increasing weight of the burden. They remain below forever, because they bear what should have bourne them. – Arthur Schopenhauer
I’ve never known any trouble than an hour’s reading didn’t assuage. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If anyone spends almost the whole day in reading…he gradually loses the capacity for thinking…This is the case with many learned persons; they have read themselves stupid. – Arthur Schopenhauer
If one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In order to read what is good, one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited. – Arthur Schopenhauer
In reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of another’s thoughts. – Arthur Schopenhauer
I’ve never known any trouble than an hour’s reading didn’t assuage. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read. If one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Men of learning are those who have done their reading in the pages of a book. Thinkers and men of genius are those who have gone straight to the book of Nature. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Men of learning are those who have read the contents of books. Thinkers, geniuses, and those who have enlightened the world and furthered the race of men, are those who have made direct use of the book of the world. – Arthur Schopenhauer
One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind. In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Reading is a mere makeshift for original thinking. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up, which will of course happen frequently enough even to the best heads; but to banish your own thoughts so as to take up a book is a sin against the holy ghost; it is like deserting untrammeled nature to look at a herbarium or engravings of landscapes. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Reading is thinking with someone else’s head instead of one’s own. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Scholars are those who have read in books, but thinkers, men of genius, world-enlighteners, and reformers of the human race are those who have read directly in the book of the world. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Students and scholars of all kinds and of every age aim, as a rule, only at information, not insight. They make it a point of honour to have information about everything, every stone, plant, battle, or experiment and about all books, collectively and individually. It never occurs to them that information is merely a means to insight, but in itself is of little or no value. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short. – Arthur Schopenhauer
The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To buy books would be a good thing if we could also buy the time to read them; but the purchase of books is often mistaken for the assimilation and mastering of their contents. – Arthur Schopenhauer
To read a book is to hold an entire world in the palm of your hand. That world is unique to you; no two readers can ever inhabit the same world. – Arthur Schopenhauer
When we read, another person thinks for us—we merely repeat his mental process. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, “Lighthouses” as the poet said “erected in the sea of time.” They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind, Books are humanity in print. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. – Arthur Schopenhauer
You should read only when your own thoughts dry up, which will of course happen frequently enough even to the best heads; but to banish your own thoughts so as to take up a book is a sin against the holy ghost; it is like deserting untrammeled nature to look at a herbarium or engravings of landscapes. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes From Wikiquote
- It is the courage to make a clean breast of it in the face of every question that makes the philosopher. He must be like Sophocles’ Oedipus, who, seeking enlightenment concerning his terrible fate, pursues his indefatigable inquiry even though he divines that appalling horror awaits him in the answer. But most of us carry with us the Jocasta in our hearts, who begs Oedipus, for God’s sake, not to inquire further.
- Letter to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (November 1819)
- Obit anus, abit onus.
- The old woman dies, the burden is lifted.
- Statement Schopenhauer wrote in Latin into his account book, after the death of a seamstress to whom he had made court-ordered payments of 15 thalers a quarter for over twenty years, after she had accused him of having injured her arm; as quoted in Modern Philosophy: From Descartes to Schopenhauer and Hartmann (1877) by Francis Bowen, p. 392. Schopenhauer had won the original case, and, being assured by the head of the Kammergericht that the original judgment would be upheld, he left Berlin. In his absence, the judgement was overturned. Schopenhauer believed that the seamstress was feigning her injuries and that she would be sly enough to do so for the remainder of her life. The only visible signs of the assault were a few minor bruises. ; as quoted in A Biography (2010) by David E. Cartwright, p. 408-411.
- The old woman dies, the burden is lifted.
- We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.
- As attributed in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899) by James Wood, p. 624
- When the Church says that, in the dogmas of religion, reason is totally incompetent and blind, and its use to be reprehended, this really attests the fact that these dogmas are allegorical in their nature, and are not to be judged by the standard which reason, taking all things sensu proprio, can alone apply. Now the absurdities of a dogma are just the mark and sign of what is allegorical and mythical in it. In the case under consideration, however, the absurdities spring from the fact that two such heterogeneous doctrines as those of the Old and New Testaments had to be combined. The great allegory was of gradual growth. Suggested by external and adventitious circumstances, it was developed by the interpretation put upon them, an interpretation in quiet touch with certain deep-lying truths only half realised. The allegory was finally completed by Augustine, who penetrated deepest into its meaning, and so was able to conceive it as a systematic whole and supply its defects.
- “The Christian System” in ‘Religion: A Dialogue, and Other Essays (1910) as translated by Thomas Bailey Saunders, p. 105
- The bad thing about all religions is that, instead of being able to confess their allegorical nature, they have to conceal it; accordingly, they parade their doctrines in all seriousness as true sensu proprio, and as absurdities form an essential part of these doctrines we have the great mischief of a continual fraud. Nay, what is worse, the day arrives when they are no longer true sensu proprio, and then there is an end of them; so that, in that respect, it would be better to admit their allegorical nature at once. But the difficulty is to teach the multitude that something can be both true and untrue at the same time. Since all religions are in a greater or less degree of this nature, we must recognise the fact that mankind cannot get on without a certain amount of absurdity, that absurdity is an element in its existence, and illusion indispensable; as indeed other aspects of life testify.
- “The Christian System” in ‘Religion: A Dialogue, and Other Essays (1910) as translated by Thomas Bailey Saunders, p. 106
- If there is anything in the world that can really be called a man’s property, it is surely that which is the result of his mental activity.
- Unverified attribution noted in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1993), ed. Suzy Platt, Library of Congress, p. 227
- Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.
- Unverified attribution noted in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1993), ed. Suzy Platt, Library of Congress, p. 39; compare Heraclitus: Nothing endures but change.
- Christianity taught only what the whole of Asia knew already long before and even better.
- quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication.
- How every line is of such strong, determined, and consistent meaning! And on every page we encounter deep, original, lofty thoughts, while the whole world is suffused with a high and holy seriousness.
- About Indian sacred scriptures. quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication.
The World as Will and Representation (1819; 1844; 1859)
- Quotations from translations of Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (first edition published in 1819, the second in 1844, the third in 1859; certain quotes appear only in specific editions) – Also translated as The World as Will and Idea – Full translation online at Wikisource
- The philosophy of Kant, then, is the only philosophy with which a thorough acquaintance is directly presupposed in what we have to say here. But if, besides this, the reader has lingered in the school of the divine Plato, he will be so much the better prepared to hear me, and susceptible to what I say. And if, indeed, in addition to this he is a partaker of the benefit conferred by the Vedas, the access to which, opened to us through the Upanishads, is in my eyes the greatest advantage which this still young century enjoys over previous ones, because I believe that the influence of the Sanscrit literature will penetrate not less deeply than did the revival of Greek literature in the fifteenth century: if, I say, the reader has also already received and assimilated the sacred, ancient Indian wisdom, then is he best of all prepared to hear what I have to say to him. My work will not speak to him, as to many others, in a strange and even hostile tongue; for, if it does not sound too vain, I might express the opinion that each one of the individual and disconnected aphorisms which make up the Upanishads may be deduced as a consequence from the thought I am going to impart, though the converse, that my thought is to be found in the Upanishads, is by no means the case.
- s:The World as Will and Representation/Preface to the First Edition
- Kants Philosophie also ist die einzige, mit welcher eine gründliche Bekanntschaft bei dem hier Vorzutragenden gradezu vorausgesetzt wird. — Wenn aber überdies noch der Leser in der Schule des göttlichen Platon geweilt hat; so wird er um so besser vorbereitet und empfänglicher seyn mich zu hören. Ist er aber gar noch der Wohllhat der Veda’s theilhaft geworden, deren uns durch die Upanischaden eröfneter Zugang, in meinen Augen, der größte Vorzug ist, den dieses noch junge Jahrhundert vor den früheren aufzuweisen hat, indem ich vermuthe, daß der Einfluß der Samskrit-Litteratur nicht weniger tief eingreifen wird, als im 14ten Jahrhundert die Wiederbelebung der Griechischen: hat also, sage ich, der Leser auch schon die Weihe uralter Indischer Weisheit empfangen und empfänglich aufgenommen; dann ist er auf das allerbeste bereitet zu hören, was ich ihm vorzutragen habe. Ihn wird es dann nicht, wie manchen Andern fremd, ja feindlich ansprechen; da ich, wenn es nicht zu stolz klänge, behaupten möchte, daß jeder von den einzelnen und abgerissenen Aussprüchen, welche die Upanischaden ausmachen, sich als Folgesatz aus dem von mir mitzutheilenden Gedanken ableiten ließe, obgleich keineswegs auch umgekehrt dieser schon dort zu finden ist.
- Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Leipzig 1819. Vorrede. pp.XII-XIII books.google
- And now that I have allowed myself the jest to which in this two-sided life hardly any page can be too serious to grant a place, I part with the book with deep seriousness, in the sure hope that sooner or later it will reach those to whom alone it can be addressed; and for the rest, patiently resigned that the same fate should, in full measure, befall it, that in all ages has, to some extent, befallen all knowledge, and especially the weightiest knowledge of the truth, to which only a brief triumph is allotted between the two long periods in which it is condemned as paradoxical or disparaged as trivial. The former fate is also wont to befall its author. But life is short, and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.
- s:The World as Will and Representation/Preface to the First Edition, last paragraph.
- Mostly quoted rather incorrectly as: All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
- Und so, nachdem ich mir den Scherz erlaubt, dem eine Stelle zu gönnen, in diesem durchweg zweideutigen Leben kaum irgend ein Blatt zu ernsthaft seyn kann, gebe ich mit innigem Ernst das Buch hin, in der Zuversicht, daß es früh oder spät diejenigen erreichen wird, an welche es allein gerichtet seyn kann, und übrigens gelassen darin ergeben, daß auch ihm in vollem Maaße das Schicksal werde, welches in jeder Erkenntniß, also um so mehr in der wichtigsten, allezeit der Wahrheit zu Theil ward, der nur ein kurzes Siegesfest beschieden ist, zwischen den beiden langen Zeiträumen, wo sie als paradox verdammt und als trivial geringgeschätzt wird. Auch pflegt das erstere Schicksal ihren Urheber mitzutreffen.— Aber das Leben ist kurz und die Wahrheit wirkt ferne und lebt lange: sagen wir die Wahrheit.
- Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Leipzig 1819. Vorrede. p.XVI books.google
- Just as the witticism brings two very different real objects under one concept, the pun brings two different concepts, by the assistance of accident, under one word.
- Volume I, Book I
- The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence.
- Vol. I, Ch. II
- This art is music. It stands quite apart from all the others. In it we do not recognize the copy, the repetition, of any Idea of the inner nature of the world. Yet it is such a great and exceedingly fine art, its effect on man’s innermost nature is so powerful, and it is so completely and profoundly understood by him in his innermost being as an entirely universal language, whose distinctness surpasses even that of the world of perception itself, that in it we certainly have to look for more than that exercitium arithmeticae occultum nescientis se numerare animi [exercise in arithmetic in which the mind does not know it is counting] which Leibniz took it to be.
- Vol. I, Ch. III, The World As Representation: Second Aspect, as translated by Eric F. J. Payne (1958)
- The method of viewing things which proceeds in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason is the rational method, and it alone is valid and of use in practical life and in science. The method which looks away from the content of this principle is the method of genius, which is only valid and of use in art.
- Die dem Satz vom Grunde nachgehende ist die vernünftige Betrachtungsart, welche im praktischen Leben, wie in der Wissenschaft, allein gilt und hilft: die vom Inhalt jenes Satzes wegsehende ist die geniale Betrachtungsart, welche in der Kunst allein gilt und hilft.
- Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Zweiter Band, Ergänzungen zum dritten Buch, para. 36 (1859)
- For what is modesty but hypocritical humility, by means of which, in a world swelling with vile envy, a man seeks to beg pardon for his excellences and merits from those who have none? For whoever attributes no merit to himself because he really has none is not modest, but merely honest.
- Vol. I, Ch. III, The World As Representation: Second Aspect
- The composer reveals the innermost nature of the world, and expresses the profoundest wisdom in a language that his reasoning faculty does not understand, just as a magnetic somnambulist gives information about things of which she has no conception when she is awake. Therefore in the composer, more than in any other artist, the man is entirely separate and distinct from the artist.
- Vol. I, Ch. III, The World As Representation
- This actual world of what is knowable, in which we are and which is in us, remains both the material and the limit of our consideration.
- Vol I, Ch. 4, The World As Will: Second Aspect, § 53, as translated by Eric F. J. Payne (1958)
- Every time a man is begotten and born, the clock of human life is wound up anew to repeat once more its same old tune that has already been played innumerable times, movement by movement and measure by measure, with insignificant variations.
- Vol. I, Ch. 4, The World As Will: Second Aspect, as translated by Eric F. J. Payne (1958) p. 322
- Correct and accurate conclusions may be arrived at if we carefully observe the relation of the spheres of concepts, and only conclude that one sphere is contained in a third sphere, when we have clearly seen that this first sphere is contained in a second, which in its turn is contained in the third. On the other hand, the art of sophistry lies in casting only a superficial glance at the relations of the spheres of the concepts, and then manipulating these relations to suit our purposes, generally in the following way: — When the sphere of an observed concept lies partly within that of another concept, and partly within a third altogether different sphere, we treat it as if it lay entirely within the one or the other, as may suit our purpose.
- Vol. I, Ch. 10, as translated by R. B. Haldane
- Reason is feminine in nature; it can only give after it has received. Of itself it has nothing but the empty forms of its operation. There is no absolutely pure rational knowledge except the four principles to which I have attributed metalogical truth; the principles of identity, contradiction, excluded middle, and sufficient reason of knowledge. For even the rest of logic is not absolutely pure rational knowledge. It presupposes the relations and the combinations of the spheres of concepts. But concepts in general only exist after experience of ideas of perception, and as their whole nature consists in their relation to these, it is clear that they presuppose them.
- Vol. I, Ch. 10, as translated by R. B. Haldane
- Variant translations:
- Reason is feminine in nature; it can give only after it has received. Of itself alone, it has nothing but the empty forms of its operation.
- As translated by Eric F. J. Payne (1958) Vol. II, p. 50
- Reason is feminine in nature: it will give only after it has received.
- Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
- Das Talent gleicht dem Schützen, der ein Ziel trifft, welches die Uebrigen nicht erreichen können; das Genie dem, der eines trifft, bis zu welchem sie nicht ein Mal zu sehn vermögen…
- Vol. II, Ch. III, para. 31 (On Genius), 1844
- As cited in The Little Book of Bathroom Philosophy: Daily Wisdom from the Greatest Thinkers (2004) by Gregory Bergman, p. 137
- My body and my will are one.
- Book 1
- We see in tragedy the noblest men, after a long conflict and suffering, finally renounce forever all the pleasure of life and the aims till then pursued so keenly, or cheerfully and willingly give up life itself.
- Book 1
- That books do not take the place of experience, and that learning is no substitute for genius, are two kindred phenomena; their common ground is that the abstract can never take the place of the perceptive.
- E. Payne, trans., Vol. II, Ch. 7, p. 74
- There is only one inborn erroneous notion … that we exist in order to be happy … So long as we persist in this inborn error … the world seems to us full of contradictions. For at every step, in great things and small, we are bound to experience that the world and life are certainly not arranged for the purpose of maintaining a happy existence … hence the countenances of almost all elderly persons wear the expression of … disappointment.
- Vol II “On the Road to Salvation”
- Life is a business that does not cover the costs.
- Vol II “On the Vanity and Suffering of Life”
- Consider the Koran… this wretched book was sufficient to start a world-religion, to satisfy the metaphysical need of countless millions for twelve hundred years, to become the basis of their morality and of a remarkable contempt for death, and also to inspire them to bloody wars and the most extensive conquests. In this book we find the saddest and poorest form of theism. Much may be lost in translation, but I have not been able to discover in it one single idea of value.
- E. Payne, trans., Vol. II, Ch. XVII: On Man’s Need for Metaphysics
- If a person is stupid, we excuse him by saying that he cannot help it; but if we attempted to excuse in precisely the same way the person who is bad, we should be laughed at.
- E. Payne, trans., vol. 2, p. 230
- All religions promise a reward for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding.
- E. Payne, trans., vol. 2, p. 230
- Wirklich ist jedes Kind gewissermaßen ein Genie, und jedes Genie gewissermaßen ein Kind.
- Every child is in a way a genius; and every genius is in a way a child.
- Bd. 2, § 3.31, p. 451
- Every child is in a way a genius; and every genius is in a way a child.
- At the age of five years to enter a spinning-cotton or other factory, and from that time forth to sit there daily, first ten, then twelve, and ultimately fourteen hours, performing the same mechanical labour, is to purchase dearly the satisfaction of drawing breath. But this is the fate of millions, and that of millions more is analogous to it.
- Vol II: “On the Vanity and Suffering of Life”, as translated by R. B. Haldane, and J. Kemp in The World as Will and Idea (1886), p. 389
Unplaced by section or chapter:
- Cited as from Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, but without further information as to volume or chapter.
- …this our world, which is so real, with all its suns and milky ways is—nothing.
- Whoever heard me assert that the grey cat playing just now in the yard is the same one that did jumps and tricks there five hundred years ago will think whatever he likes of me, but it is a stranger form of madness to imagine that the present-day cat is fundamentally an entirely different one.
- Quoted by Jorge Luis Borges in his essay “A History of Eternity”
- In every page of David Hume, there is more to be learned than from Hegel’s, Herbart’s and Schleiermacher’s complete philosophical works. – vol. II, p. 582 (as cited on p. 177 of Schopenhauer: A Biography)
- Spinoza says that if a stone which has been projected through the air, had consciousness, it would believe that it was moving of its own free will. I add this only, that the stone would be right. The impulse given it is for the stone what the motive is for me, and what in the case of the stone appears as cohesion, gravitation, rigidity, is in its inner nature the same as that which I recognise in myself as will, and what the stone also, if knowledge were given to it, would recognise as will.
- We, on the contrary, now send to the Brahmans English clergymen and evangelical linen-weavers, in order out of sympathy to put them right, and to point out to them that they are created out ofnothmg, and that they ought to be grateful and pleased about it. But it is Just the same as if we fired a bullet at a cliff. ” In India, our religions wIll never at any time take root; the ancient wisdom of the human race will not be supplanted by the events in Galilee. On the contrary, Indian Wisdom flows back to Europe, and will produce a fundamental change in our knowledge and thought.
- Schopenhauer, Arthur The world as will and representation. Translated from the German by E. F. J. Payne. New York, Dover Publications [c1969 – Volume I, & 63 p. 356-357. quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication.
On the Basis of Morality (1840)
- Full text online at the Internet Archive, trans. Arthur Brodrick Bullock, London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1903.
- Thus, because Christian morals leave animals out of consideration … therefore in philosophical morals they are of course at once outlawed; they are merely “things,” simply means to ends of any sort; and so they are good for vivisection, for deer-stalking, bull-fights, horse-races, etc., and they may be whipped to death as they struggle along with heavy quarry carts. Shame on such a morality … which fails to recognize the Eternal Reality immanent in everything that has life, and shining forth with inscrutable significance from all eyes that see the sun!
- Part II, Ch. VI, pp. 94-95
- Boundless compassion for all living beings is the surest and most certain guarantee of pure moral conduct, and needs no casuistry. Whoever is filled with it will assuredly injure no one, do harm to no one, encroach on no man’s rights; he will rather have regard for every one, forgive every one, help every one as far as he can, and all his actions will bear the stamp of justice and loving-kindness. … In former times the English plays used to finish with a petition for the King. The old Indian dramas close with these words: “May all living beings be delivered from pain.” Tastes differ; but in my opinion there is no more beautiful prayer than this.
- Part III, Ch. VIII, 4, pp. 213-214
- First line often paraphrased as: Compassion is the basis of all morality.
- Part III, Ch. VIII, 4, pp. 213-214
- It is asserted that beasts have no rights; the illusion is harboured that our conduct, so far as they are concerned, has no moral significance, or, as it is put in the language of these codes, that “there are no duties to be fulfilled towards animals.” Such a view is one of revolting coarseness, a barbarism of the West, whose source is Judaism. In philosophy, however, it rests on the assumption, despite all evidence to the contrary, of the radical difference between man and beast,—a doctrine which, as is well known, was proclaimed with more trenchant emphasis by Descartes than by any one else: it was indeed the necessary consequence of his mistakes.
- Part III, Ch. VIII, 7, p. 218
- Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he, who is cruel to living creatures, cannot be a good man. Moreover, this compassion manifestly flows from the same source whence arise the virtues of justice and loving-kindness towards men.
- Part III, Ch. VIII, 7, p. 223
- Europeans are awakening more and more to a sense that beasts have rights, in proportion as the strange notion is being gradually overcome and outgrown, that the animal kingdom came into existence solely for the benefit and pleasure of man. This view, with the corollary that non-human living creatures are to be regarded merely as things, is at the root of the rough and altogether reckless treatment of them, which obtains in the West.
- Part III, Ch. VIII, 7, p. 225
- My basis is supported by the authority of the greatest moralist of modern times; for such, undoubtedly, J. J. Rousseau is,—that profound reader of the human heart, who drew his wisdom not from books, but from life, and intended his doctrine not for the professorial chair, but for humanity; he, the foe of all prejudice, the foster-child of nature, whom alone she endowed with the gift of being able to moralise without tediousness, because he hit the truth and stirred the heart.
- Part III, Ch. VIII, 9, p. 230
- The view of things [called Pantheism] … — that all plurality is only apparent, that in the endless series of individuals, passing simultaneously and successively into and out of life, generation after generation, age after age, there is but one and the same entity really existing, which is present and identical in all alike; — this theory … may be carried back to the remotest antiquity. It is the alpha and omega of the oldest book in the world, the sacred Vedas, whose dogmatic part, or rather esoteric teaching, is found in the Upanishads. There, in almost every page this profound doctrine lies enshrined; with tireless repetition, in countless adaptations, by many varied parables and similes it is expounded and inculcated. That such was, moreover, the fount whence Pythagoras drew his wisdom, cannot be doubted … That it formed practically the central point in the whole philosophy of the Eleatic School, is likewise a familiar fact. Later on, the New Platonists were steeped in the same … In the ninth century we find it unexpectedly appearing in Europe. It kindles the spirit of no less a divine than Johannes Scotus Erigena, who endeavours to clothe it with the forms and terminology of the Christian religion. Among the Mohammedans we detect it again in the rapt mysticism of the Sufi. In the West Giordano Bruno cannot resist the impulse to utter it aloud; but his reward is a death of shame and torture. And at the same time we find the Christian Mystics losing themselves in it, against their own will and intention, whenever and wherever we read of them! Spinoza’s name is identified with it.
- Part IV, Ch. 2, pp. 269-272
- Now if plurality and difference belong only to the appearance-form; if there is but one and the same Entity manifested in all living things: it follows that, when we obliterate the distinction between the ego and the non-ego, we are not the sport of an illusion. Rather are we so, when we maintain the reality of individuation, — a thing the Hindus call Maya, that is, a deceptive vision, a phantasma. The former theory we have found to be the actual source of the phaenomenon of Compassion; indeed Compassion is nothing but its translation into definite expression. This, therefore, is what I should regard as the metaphysical foundation of Ethics, and should describe it as the sense which identifies the ego with the non-ego, so that the individual directly recognises in another his own self, his true and very being. From this standpoint the profoundest teaching of theory pushed to its furthest limits may be shown in the end to harmonise perfectly with the rules of justice and loving-kindness, as exercised; and conversely, it will be clear that practical philosophers, that is, the upright, the beneficent, the magnanimous, do but declare through their acts the same truth as the man of speculation wins by laborious research … He who is morally noble, however deficient in mental penetration, reveals by his conduct the deepest insight, the truest wisdom; and puts to shame the most accomplished and learned genius, if the latter’s acts betray that his heart is yet a stranger to this great principle, — the metaphysical unity of life.
- Part IV, Ch. 2, pp. 273-274
- Here the institution that compels is the state, the only purpose of which is to protect individuals from one another and the whole from external enemies. Some German philosophasters of this mercenary age would like to twist it into an institution for education and edification in morality; in the background of this lurks the Jesuitical purpose of eliminating personal freedom and the individual’s personal development in order to make him into a mere cog in a Chinese machine of state and religion. But this is the path by which in the past one has arrived at the inquisitions, burning of heretics, and religious wars; Frederick the Great’s pledge, ‘In my country, each shall be able to tend to his salvation in his own fashion’, indicated that he never wanted to tread that path.
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- Part III, Ch. VI, p. 184
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
- Various portions of this large work have been translated and published in English under various titles. It is here divided up into sections corresponding to those of the original volumes and some of the cited translations.
- Philosophy … is a science, and as such has no articles of faith; accordingly, in it nothing can be assumed as existing except what is either positively given empirically, or demonstrated through indubitable conclusions.
- Vol I
- No difference of rank, position, or birth, is so great as the gulf that separates the countless millions who use their head only in the service of their belly, in other words, look upon it as an instrument of the will, and those very few and rare persons who have the courage to say: No! my head is too good for that; it shall be active only in its own service; it shall try to comprehend the wondrous and varied spectacle of this world and then reproduce it in some form, whether as art or as literature, that may answer to my character as an individual.
- On Genius, Parerga and Paralipomena, Chapter III,
- A mother gave her children Aesop’s fables to read, in the hope of educating and improving their minds; but they very soon brought the book back, and the eldest, wise beyond his years, delivered himself as follows: This is no book for us; it’s much too childish and stupid. You can’t make us believe that foxes and wolves and ravens are able to talk; we’ve got beyond stories of that kind! In these young hopefuls you have the enlightened Rationalists of the future.
- “Similes, Parables and Fables” Parerga and Paralipomena
- In a field of ripening corn I came to a place which had been trampled down by some ruthless foot; and as I glanced amongst the countless stalks, every one of them alike, standing there so erect and bearing the full weight of the ear, I saw a multitude of different flowers, red and blue and violet. How pretty they looked as they grew there so naturally with their little foliage! But, thought I, they are quite useless; they bear no fruit; they are mere weeds, suffered to remain only because there is no getting rid of them. And yet, but for these flowers, there would be nothing to charm the eye in that wilderness of stalks. They are emblematic of poetry and art, which, in civic life—so severe, but still useful and not without its fruit—play the same part as flowers in the corn.
- “Similes, Parables and Fables” Parerga and Paralipomena, vol. 2, § 380A
- The charlatan takes very different shapes according to circumstances; but at bottom he is a man who cares nothing about knowledge for its own sake, and only strives to gain the semblance of it that he may use it for his own personal ends, which are always selfish and material.
- “Similes, Parables and Fables” Parerga and Paralipomena, vol. 2, § 394
- Every true thinker for himself is so far like a monarch; he is absolute, and recognises nobody above him. His judgments, like the decrees of a monarch, spring from his own sovereign power and proceed directly from himself. He takes as little notice of authority as a monarch does of a command; nothing is valid unless he has himself authorised it. On the other hand, those of vulgar minds, who are swayed by all kinds of current opinions, authorities, and prejudices, are like the people which in silence obey the law and commands.
- “Thinking for Oneself,” H. Dirks, trans.
- A man’s body and the needs of his body are now everywhere treated with a tender indulgence. Is the thinking mind then, to be the only thing that is never to obtain the slightest measure of consideration or protection, to say nothing of respect?
- “On Noise”
Sketch of a History of the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real
- Descartes is rightly regarded as the father of modern philosophy primarily and generally because he helped the faculty of reason to stand on its own feet by teaching men to use their brains in place whereof the Bible, on the one hand, and Aristotle, on the other, had previously served.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 3
- To be a philosopher, that is to say, a lover of wisdom (for wisdom is nothing but truth), it is not enough for a man to love truth, in so far as it is compatible with his own interest, with the will of his superiors, with the dogmas of the church, or with the prejudices and tastes of his contemporaries; so long as he rests content with this position, he is only a philautos, not a philosophos [a lover of self, not a lover of wisdom]. For this title of honor is well and wisely conceived precisely by its stating that one should love the truth earnestly and with one’s whole heart, and thus unconditionally and unreservedly, above all else, and, if need be, in defiance of all else. Now the reason for this is the one previously stated that the intellect has become free, and in this state it does not even know or understand any other interest than that of truth.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 21–22
- The auspices for philosophy are bad if, when proceeding ostensibly on the investigation of truth, we start saying farewell to all uprightness, honesty and sincerity, and are intent only on passing ourselves off for what we are not. We then assume, like those three sophists [Fichte, Schelling and Hegel], first a false pathos, then an affected and lofty earnestness, then an air of infinite superiority, in order to impose where we despair of ever being able to convince.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 22
- If, while hurrying ostensibly to the temple of truth, we hand the reins over to our personal interests which look aside at very different guiding stars, for instance at the tastes and foibles of our contemporaries, at the established religion, but in particular at the hints and suggestions of those at the head of affairs, then how shall we ever reach the high, precipitous, bare rock whereon stands the temple of truth?
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 22–23
- An unbiased reader, on opening one of their [Fichte’s, Schelling’s or Hegel’s] books and then asking himself whether this is the tone of a thinker wanting to instruct or that of a charlatan wanting to impress, cannot be five minutes in any doubt. … The tone of calm investigation, which had characterized all previous philosophy, is exchanged for that of unshakeable certainty, such as is peculiar to charlatanry of every kind and at all times. … From every page and every line, there speaks an endeavor to beguile and deceive the reader, first by producing an effect to dumbfound him, then by incomprehensible phrases and even sheer nonsense to stun and stupefy him, and again by audacity of assertion to puzzle him, in short, to throw dust in his eyes and mystify him as much as possible.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 23
On Philosophy in the Universities
- Ueberhaupt aber bin ich allmälig der Meinung geworden, daß der erwähnte Nutzen der Kathederphilosophie von dem Nachtheil überwogen werde, den die Philosophie als Profession der Philosophie als freier Wahrheitsforschung, oder die Philosophie im Auftrage der Regierung der Philosophie im Auftrage der Natur und der Menschheit bringt.
- Chair-philosophy is burdened with the disadvantage which philosophy as a profession imposes on philosophy as the free investigation of truth, or which philosophy by government order imposes on philosophy in the name of nature and mankind.
- Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, p. 151, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 139
- Chair-philosophy is burdened with the disadvantage which philosophy as a profession imposes on philosophy as the free investigation of truth, or which philosophy by government order imposes on philosophy in the name of nature and mankind.
- Zuvörderst nämlich wird eine Regierung nicht Leute besolden, um Dem, was sie durch tausend von ihr angestellte Priester, oder Religionslehrer, von allen Kanzeln verkünden läßt, direkt, oder auch nur indirekt, zu widersprechen. … Daher der Grundsatz improbant secus docentes.
- A government will not pay people to contradict directly, or even only indirectly, what it has had promulgated from all the pulpits by thousands of its appointed priests or religious teachers. … Hence the maxim improbant secus docentes [We reject and condemn the man who teaches something different].
- Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, pp. 152–153, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 139
- A government will not pay people to contradict directly, or even only indirectly, what it has had promulgated from all the pulpits by thousands of its appointed priests or religious teachers. … Hence the maxim improbant secus docentes [We reject and condemn the man who teaches something different].
- … deshalb ich diese als die Metaphysik des Volkes bezeichnet habe.
- I have described religion as the metaphysics of the people.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 140
- I have described religion as the metaphysics of the people.
- Man sieht daraus, daß in der Universitäts-philosophie die Wahrheit nur eine sekundäre Stelle einnimmt und, wenn es gefordert wird, aufstehn muß, einer andern Eigenschaft Platz zu machen.
- In philosophy at the universities truth occupies only a secondary place and, if called upon, she must get up and make room for another attribute.
- Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, p. 152, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 140
- In philosophy at the universities truth occupies only a secondary place and, if called upon, she must get up and make room for another attribute.
- In Folge hievon wird, so lange die Kirche besteht, auf den Universitäten stets nur eine solche Philosophie gelehrt werden dürfen, welche, mit durchgängiger Rücksicht auf die Landesreligion abgefaßt, dieser im Wesentlichen parallel läuft und daher stets,—allenfalls kraus figurirt, seltsam verbrämt und dadurch schwer verständlich gemacht,—doch im Grunde und in der Hauptsache nichts Anderes, als eine Paraphrase und Apologie der Landesreligion ist. Den unter diesen Beschränkungen Lehrenden bleibt sonach nichts Anderes übrig, als nach neuen Wendungen und Formen zu suchen, unter welchen sie den in abstrakte Ausdrücke verkleideten und dadurch fade gemachten Inhalt der Landesreligion aufstellen, der alsdann Philosophie heißt.
- Framed with regard to the established religion, this philosophy runs essentially parallel thereto; and so, being perhaps intricately composed, curiously trimmed, and thus rendered difficult to understand, it is always at bottom and in the main nothing but a paraphrase and apology of the established religion. Accordingly, for those teaching under these restrictions, there is nothing left but to look for new turns of phrase and forms of speech by which they arrange the contents of the established religion. Distinguished in abstract expressions and thereby rendered dry and dull, they then go by the name of philosophy.
- Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, pp. 152–153, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 140
- Framed with regard to the established religion, this philosophy runs essentially parallel thereto; and so, being perhaps intricately composed, curiously trimmed, and thus rendered difficult to understand, it is always at bottom and in the main nothing but a paraphrase and apology of the established religion. Accordingly, for those teaching under these restrictions, there is nothing left but to look for new turns of phrase and forms of speech by which they arrange the contents of the established religion. Distinguished in abstract expressions and thereby rendered dry and dull, they then go by the name of philosophy.
- Inzwischen bleiben die solchermaaßen beschränkten Universitätsphilosophie bei der Sache ganz wohlgemuth; weil ihr eigentlicher Ernst darin liegt, mit Ehren ein redliches Auskommen für sich, nebst Weib und Kind, zu erwerben, auch ein gewisses Ansehn vor den Leuten zu genießen; hingegen das tiefbewegte Gemüth eines wirklichen Philosophen, dessen ganzer und großer Ernst im Aufsuchen eines Schlüssels zu unserm, so rätselhaften wie mißlichen Daseyn liegt, von ihnen zu den mythologischen Wesen gezählt wird; wenn nicht etwa» gar der damit Behaftete, sollte er ihnen je vorkommen, ihnen als von Monomanie besessen erscheint. Denn daß es mit der Philosophie so recht eigentlicher, bitterer Ernst seyn könne, läßt wohl, in der Regel, kein Mensch sich weniger träumen, als ein Docent derselben; gleichwie der ungläubigste Christ der Papst zu seyn pflegt. Daher gehört es denn auch zu den seltensten Fällen, daß ein wirklicher Philosoph zugleich ein Docent der Philosophie gewesen wäre.
- University professors, restricted in this way, are quite happy about the matter, for their real concern is to earn with credit an honest livelihood for themselves and also for their wives and children and moreover to enjoy a certain prestige in the eyes of the public. On the other hand, the deeply stirred mind of the real philosopher, whose whole concern is to look for the key to our existence, as mysterious as it is precarious, is regarded by them as something mythological, if indeed the man so affected does not even appear to them to be obsessed by a monomania, should he ever be met with among them. For that a man could really be in dead earnest about philosophy does not as a rule occur to anyone, least of all to a lecturer thereon; just as the most sceptical Christian is usually the Pope. It has, therefore, been one of the rarest events for a genuine philosopher to be at the same time a lecturer in philosophy.
- Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, p. 153, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 141
- University professors, restricted in this way, are quite happy about the matter, for their real concern is to earn with credit an honest livelihood for themselves and also for their wives and children and moreover to enjoy a certain prestige in the eyes of the public. On the other hand, the deeply stirred mind of the real philosopher, whose whole concern is to look for the key to our existence, as mysterious as it is precarious, is regarded by them as something mythological, if indeed the man so affected does not even appear to them to be obsessed by a monomania, should he ever be met with among them. For that a man could really be in dead earnest about philosophy does not as a rule occur to anyone, least of all to a lecturer thereon; just as the most sceptical Christian is usually the Pope. It has, therefore, been one of the rarest events for a genuine philosopher to be at the same time a lecturer in philosophy.
- Das Bedenkliche bei der Sache ist auch bloß die doch einzuräumende Möglichkeit, daß die letzte dem Menschen erreichbare Einsicht in die Natur der Dinge, in sein eigenes Wesen und das der Welt nicht gerade zusammenträfe mit den Lehren, welche theils dem ehemaligen Völkchen der Juden eröffnet worden, theils vor 1800 Jahren in Jerusalem aufgetreten sind.
- The hazardous part of the business is also the mere possibility, still to be admitted, that the ultimate insight into the nature of things attainable by man, into his very being and that of the world, might not coincide exactly with the doctrines which were in part made known to the former little race of the Jews and in part appeared in Jerusalem eighteen hundred years ago.
- Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, p. 154, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 142
- The hazardous part of the business is also the mere possibility, still to be admitted, that the ultimate insight into the nature of things attainable by man, into his very being and that of the world, might not coincide exactly with the doctrines which were in part made known to the former little race of the Jews and in part appeared in Jerusalem eighteen hundred years ago.
- Andere wieder, von diesen Wahrheitsforschern, schmelzen Philosophie und Religion zu einem Kentauren zusammen, den sie Religionsphilosophie nennen; Pflegen auch zu lehren, Religion und Philosophie seien eigentlich das Selbe;—welcher Sah jedoch nur in dem Sinne wahr zu seyn scheint, in welchem Franz I., in Beziehung auf Karl V., sehr versöhnlich gesagt haben soll: „was mein Bruder Karl will, das will ich auch,”—nämlich Mailand, Wieder andere machen nicht so viele Umstände, sondern reden geradezu von einer Christlichen Philosophie;—welches ungefähr so herauskommt, wie wenn man von einer Christlichen Arithmetik reden wollte, die fünf gerade seyn ließe. Dergleichen von Glaubenslehren entnommene Epitheta sind zudem der Philosophie offenbar unanständig, da sie sich für den Versuch der Vernunft giebt, aus eigenen Mitteln und unabhängig von aller Auktorität das Problem des Daseyns zu lösen.
- Others … are in the habit of teaching that religion and philosophy are really the same thing. Such a statement, however, appears to be true only in the sense in which Francis I is supposed to have said in a very conciliatory tone with reference to Charles V: ‘what my brother Charles wants is also what I want’, namely Milan. Others again do not stand on such ceremony, but talk bluntly of a Christian philosophy, which is much the same as if we were to speak of a Christian arithmetic, and this would be stretching a point. Moreover, epithets taken from such dogmas are obviously unbecoming of philosophy, for it is devoted to the attempt of the faculty of reason to solve by its own means and independently of all authority the problem of existence.
- Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, p. 155, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 142-143
- Others … are in the habit of teaching that religion and philosophy are really the same thing. Such a statement, however, appears to be true only in the sense in which Francis I is supposed to have said in a very conciliatory tone with reference to Charles V: ‘what my brother Charles wants is also what I want’, namely Milan. Others again do not stand on such ceremony, but talk bluntly of a Christian philosophy, which is much the same as if we were to speak of a Christian arithmetic, and this would be stretching a point. Moreover, epithets taken from such dogmas are obviously unbecoming of philosophy, for it is devoted to the attempt of the faculty of reason to solve by its own means and independently of all authority the problem of existence.
- Man wolle nicht scheinen was man nicht ist. Das Vorgeben unbefangener Wahrheitsforschung, mit dem Entschluß, die Landesreligion zum Resultat, ja zum Maaßstabe und zur Kontrole derselben zu machen, ist unerträglich, und eine solche, an die Landesreligion, wie der Kettenhund an die Mauer, gebundene Philosophie ist nur das ärgerliche Zerrbild der höchsten und edelsten Bestrebung der Menschheit.
- We should not pretend to be what we are not. The pretence of the impartial investigation of truth, with the resolve to make the established religion the result, indeed the measure and control of truth, is intolerable and such a philosophy, tied to the established religion like a dog to a chain, is only the vexatious caricature of the highest and noblest endeavor of mankind.
- Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, pp. 155–156, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 143
- We should not pretend to be what we are not. The pretence of the impartial investigation of truth, with the resolve to make the established religion the result, indeed the measure and control of truth, is intolerable and such a philosophy, tied to the established religion like a dog to a chain, is only the vexatious caricature of the highest and noblest endeavor of mankind.
- Philosophy of religion … really amounts to … philosophizing on certain favorite assumptions that are not confirmed at all.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 143
- Ja, bisweilen fühlt man sich versucht zu glauben, daß sie ihre ernstlich gemeinten philosophischen Forschungen schon vor ihrem zwölften Jahre abgethan und bereits damals ihre Ansicht vom Wesen der Welt, und was dem anhängt, auf immer festgestellt hätten; weil sie, nach allen philosophischen Diskussionen und halsbrechenden Abwegen, unter verwegenen Führern, doch immer wieder bei Dem anlangen, was uns in jenem Alter plausibel gemacht zu werden pflegt, und es sogar als Kriterium der Wahrheit zu nehmen scheinen. Alle die heterodoren philosophischen Lehren, mit welchen sie dazwischen, im Laufe ihres Lebens, sich haben beschäftigen müssen, scheinen ihnen nur dazu- seyn, um widerlegt zu werben und dadurch jene ersteren desto fester zu etabliren.
- Indeed at times we feel tempted to think that they had finished with their seriously meant philosophical investigations ever before their twelfth year and that at that age they had for the rest of their lives settled their view on the nature of the world and on everything pertaining thereto. We feel so tempted because after all the philosophical discussions and dangerous deviations, … they always come back to what is usually made plausible to us at that tender age and appear to accept this even as the criterion of truth. All heterodox philosophical doctrines, with which they must at times be concerned in the course of their lives, appear to them to exist merely to be refuted and this to establish those others the more firmly.
- Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, p. 156, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 143-144
- Indeed at times we feel tempted to think that they had finished with their seriously meant philosophical investigations ever before their twelfth year and that at that age they had for the rest of their lives settled their view on the nature of the world and on everything pertaining thereto. We feel so tempted because after all the philosophical discussions and dangerous deviations, … they always come back to what is usually made plausible to us at that tender age and appear to accept this even as the criterion of truth. All heterodox philosophical doctrines, with which they must at times be concerned in the course of their lives, appear to them to exist merely to be refuted and this to establish those others the more firmly.
- Inzwischen verlangt die Billigkeit, daß man die Universitätsphilosophie nicht bloß, wie hier gescheht!, aus dem Standpunkte des angeblichen, sondern auch aus dem des wahren und eigentlichen Zweckes derselben beurtheile. Dieser nämlich läuft darauf hinaus, daß die künftigen Referendarien, Advokaten, Aerzte, Kandidaten und Schulmänner auch im Innersten ihrer Ueberzeugungen diejenige Richtung erhalten, welche den Absichten, die der Staat und seine Regierung mit ihnen haben, angemessen ist. Dagegen habe ich nichts einzuwenden, bescheide mich also in dieser Hinsicht. Denn über die Nothwendigkeit, oder Entbehrlichkeit eines solchen Staatsmittels zu urtheilen, halte ich mich nicht für kompetent; sondern stelle es denen anheim, welche die schwere Aufgabe haben, Menschen zu regieren, d. h. unter vielen Millionen eines, der großen Mehrzahl nach, gränzenlos egoistischen, ungerechten, unbilligen, unredlichen, neidischen, boshaften und dabei sehr beschränkten und querköpfigen Geschlechtes, Gesetz, Ordnung, Ruhe und Friede aufrecht zu erhalten und die Wenigen, denen irgend ein Besitz zu Theil geworden, zu schützen gegen die Unzahl Derer, welche nichts, als ihre Körperkräfte haben. Die Aufgabe ist so schwer, daß ich mich wahrlich nicht vermesse, über die dabei anzuwendenden Mittel mit ihnen zu rechten. Denn „ich danke Gott an jedem Morgen, daß ich nicht brauch’ für’s Röm’sche Reich zu sorgen,”—ist stets mein Wahlspruch gewesen. Diese Staatszwecke der Universitätsphilosophie waren es aber, welche der Hegelei eine so beispiellose Ministergunft verschafften. Denn ihr war der Staat „der absolut vollendete ethische Organismus,” und sie ließ den ganzen Zweck des menschlichen Daseyns im Staat aufgehn. Konnte es eine bessere Zurichtung für künftige Referendarien und demnächst Staatsbeamte geben, als diese, in Folge welcher ihr ganzes Wesen und Seyn, mit Leib und Seele, völlig dem Staat verfiel, wie das der Biene dem Bienenstock, und sie auf nichts Anderes, weder in dieser, noch in einer andern Welt hinzuarbeiten hatten, als daß sie taugliche Räder würden, mitzuwirken, um die große Staatsmaschine, diesen ultimus finis bonorum, im Gange zu erhalten? Der Referendar und der Mensch war danach Eins und das Selbe. Es war eine rechte Apotheose der Philisterei.
- We should judge university philosophy … by its true and proper aim: … that the junior barristers, solicitors, doctors, probationers, and pedagogues of the future should maintain, even in their innermost conviction, the same line of thought in keeping with the aims and intentions that the State and its government have in common with them. I have no objection to this and so in this respect have nothing to say. For I do not consider myself competent to judge of the necessity or needlessness of such a State expedient, but rather leave it to those who have the difficult task of governing men, that is to say, of maintain law and order, … and of protecting the few who have acquired property from the immense number of those who have nothing but their physical strength. … I certainly do not presume to argue with them over the means to be employed in this case; for my motto has always been: “Thank God, each morning, therefore, that you have not the Roman realm to care for!” [Goethe, Faust] But it was these constitutional aims of university philosophy which procured for Hegelry such an unprecedented ministerial favor. For it the State was “the absolute perfect ethical organism,” and it represented as originating in the State the whole aim of human existence. Could there be for future junior barristers and thus for state officials a better preparation than this, in consequence whereof their whole substance and being, their body and soul, were entirely forfeited to the State, like bees in a beehive, and they had nothing else to work for … except to become efficient wheels, cooperating for the purpose of keeping in motion the great State machine, that ultimus finis bonorum [ultimate good]? The junior barrister and the man were accordingly one and the same. It was a real apotheosis of philistinism.
- Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, p. 159, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 146-147
- We should judge university philosophy … by its true and proper aim: … that the junior barristers, solicitors, doctors, probationers, and pedagogues of the future should maintain, even in their innermost conviction, the same line of thought in keeping with the aims and intentions that the State and its government have in common with them. I have no objection to this and so in this respect have nothing to say. For I do not consider myself competent to judge of the necessity or needlessness of such a State expedient, but rather leave it to those who have the difficult task of governing men, that is to say, of maintain law and order, … and of protecting the few who have acquired property from the immense number of those who have nothing but their physical strength. … I certainly do not presume to argue with them over the means to be employed in this case; for my motto has always been: “Thank God, each morning, therefore, that you have not the Roman realm to care for!” [Goethe, Faust] But it was these constitutional aims of university philosophy which procured for Hegelry such an unprecedented ministerial favor. For it the State was “the absolute perfect ethical organism,” and it represented as originating in the State the whole aim of human existence. Could there be for future junior barristers and thus for state officials a better preparation than this, in consequence whereof their whole substance and being, their body and soul, were entirely forfeited to the State, like bees in a beehive, and they had nothing else to work for … except to become efficient wheels, cooperating for the purpose of keeping in motion the great State machine, that ultimus finis bonorum [ultimate good]? The junior barrister and the man were accordingly one and the same. It was a real apotheosis of philistinism.
- Als auf die große Masse des Menschengeschlechts berechnet und derselben angemessen, kann bloß allegorische Wahrheit enthalten, welche sie jedoch als sensu proprio wahr geltend zu machen hat.
- Dogma is intended for, and suited to, the great mass of the human race; and as such it can contain merely allegorical truth that it nevertheless has to pass off as truth sensu proprio [in the proper sense].
- Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, p. 160, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 147
- Dogma is intended for, and suited to, the great mass of the human race; and as such it can contain merely allegorical truth that it nevertheless has to pass off as truth sensu proprio [in the proper sense].
- If from the wilderness the righteous and honest John were actually to come who, clothed in skins and living on locusts and untouched by all the terrible mischief, were meanwhile to apply himself with a pure heart and in all seriousness to the investigation of truth and to offer the fruits thereof, what kind of reception would he have to expect from those businessmen of the chair, who are hired for State purposes and with wife and family have to live on philosophy, and whose watchword is, therefore, Primum vivere, deinde philosophari [first live and then philosophize]? These men have accordingly taken possession of the market and have already seen to it that here nothing is of value except what they allow; consequently merit exists only in so far as they and their mediocrity are pleased to acknowledge it. They thus have on a leading rein the attention of that small public, such as it is, that is concerned with philosophy. For on matters that do not promise, like the productions of poetry, amusement and entertainment but only instruction, and financially unprofitable instruction at that, that public will certainly not waste its time, effort, and energy, without first being thoroughly assured that such efforts will be richly rewarded. Now by virtue of its inherited belief that whoever lives by a business knows all about it, this public expects an assurance from the professional men who from professor’s chairs and in compendiums, journals, and literary periodicals, confidently behave as if they were the real masters of the subject. Accordingly, the public allows them to sample and select whatever is worth noting and what can be ignored. My poor John from the wilderness, how will you fare if, as is to be expected, what you bring is not drafted in accordance with the tacit convention of the gentlemen of the lucrative philosophy? They will regard you as one who has not entered in the spirit of the game and thus threatens to spoil the fun for all of them; consequently, they will regard you as their common enemy and antagonist. Now even if what you bring were the greatest masterpiece of the human mind, it could never find favor in their eyes. For it would not be drawn up ad normam conventionis [according to the current pattern]; and so it would not be such as to enable them to make it the subject of their lectures from the chair in order to make a living from it. It never occurs to a professor of philosophy to examine a new system that appears to see whether it is true; but he at once tests it merely to see whether it can be brought into harmony with the doctrines of the established religion, with government plans, and with the prevailing views of the times.
- Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, pp. 160-161, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 148-149
Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life
Read it online here.
Quotes from Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit, using various translations, also translated as On The Wisdom of Life: Aphorisms
- The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.
- Vol. 1, Ch. 3, Section 2: Pride
- No doubt, when modesty was made a virtue, it was a very advantageous thing for the fools, for everybody is expected to speak of himself as if he were one.
- Vol. 1, Ch. 3, Section 2: Pride
- Ruhm muß daher erst erworben werden: die Ehre hingegen braucht bloß nicht verloren zu gehen.
- Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost.
- Vol. 1. Ch. 4: Position, or a Man’s Place in the Estimation of Others, §4-Honor
- Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost.
- Pride is an established conviction of one’s own paramount worth in some particular respect, while vanity is the desire of rousing such a conviction in others, and it is generally accompanied by the secret hope of ultimately coming to the same conviction oneself. Pride works from within; it is the direct appreciation of oneself. Vanity is the desire to arrive at this appreciation indirectly, from without.
- Vol. 1, Ch. 4, § 2
- On the other hand, the cheapest form of pride is national pride; for the man affected therewith betrays a want of individual qualities of which he might be proud, since he would not otherwise resort to that which he shares with so many millions. The man who possesses outstanding personal qualities will rather see most clearly the faults of his own nation, for he has them constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool, who has nothing in the world whereof he could be proud, resorts finally to being proud of the very nation to which he belongs. In this he finds compensation and is now ready and thankful to defend, … all the faults and follies peculiar to it. (From ‘Parerga and Paralipomena’, Vol. 1, Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life, ‘What A Man Represents’, pp. 360)
- Rascals are always sociable — more’s the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others’ company.
- Vol. 1, Ch. 5, § 9
Not as yet placed by section or chapter:
- Cited as from Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit, Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life or “The Wisdom of Life” but without further information; some of the quotes in this section are of the original German phrase, with only improvised English translation, addition of published English translations is welcomed.
- Childish and altogether ludicrous is what you yourself are and all philosophers; and if a grown-up man like me spends fifteen minutes with fools of this kind, it is merely a way of passing the time. I’ve now got more important things to do. Goodbye!
- Thrasymachus, in On the Indestructibility of our Essential Being by Death, in Essays and Aphorisms (1970) as translated by R. J. Hollingdale, p. 76
- A reproach can only hurt if it hits the mark. Whoever knows that he does not deserve a reproach can treat it with contempt.
- The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.
- National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.
- Variant translation: Every nation criticizes every other one — and they are all correct.
- As quoted by Wolfgang Pauli in a letter to Abraham Pais (17 August 1950) published in The Genius of Science (2000) by Abraham Pais, p. 242
- Variant translation: Every nation criticizes every other one — and they are all correct.
- Im allgemeinen freilich haben die Weisen aller Zeiten immer dasselbe gesagt, und die Toren, d.h. die unermessliche Majorität aller Zeiten, haben immer dasselbe, nämlich das Gegenteil getan; und so wird es denn auch ferner bleiben.
- In general admittedly the Wise of all times have always said the same thing, and the fools, that is to say the vast majority of all times, have always done the same thing, i.e. the opposite; and so it will remain in the future.
- Die Gegenwart eines Gedankens ist wie die Gegenwart einer Geliebten.
- The presence of a thought is like the presence of a lover.
- Die Erinnerung wirkt wie das Sammlungsglas in der Camera obscura: Sie zieht alles zusammen und bringt dadurch ein viel schöneres Bild hervor, als sein Original ist.
- Memory works like the collection glass in the Camera obscura: it gathers everything together and therewith produces a far more beautiful picture than was present originally.
- Alles, alles kann einer vergessen, nur nicht sich selbst, sein eigenes Wesen.
- One can forget everything, everything, only not oneself, one’s own being.
- Zu unserer Besserung bedürfen wir eines Spiegels.
- For our improvement we need a mirror.
- Meistens belehrt uns erst der Verlust über den Wert der Dinge.
- Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.
- Die wohlfeilste Art des Stolzes hingegen ist der Nationalstolz. Denn er verrät in dem damit Behafteten den Mangel an individuellen Eigenschaften, auf die er stolz sein könnte, indem er sonst nicht zu dem greifen würde, was er mit so vielen Millionen teilt. Wer bedeutende persönliche Vorzüge besitzt, wird vielmehr die Fehler seiner eigenen Nation, da er sie beständig vor Augen hat, am deutlichsten erkennen. Aber jeder erbärmliche Tropf, der nichts in der Welt hat, darauf er stolz sein könnte, ergreift das letzte Mittel, auf die Nation, der er gerade angehört, stolz zu sein. Hieran erholt er sich und ist nun dankbarlich bereit, alle Fehler und Torheiten, die ihr eigen sind, mit Händen und Füßen zu verteidigen.
- The cheapest form of pride however is national pride. For it reveals in the one thus afflicted the lack of individual qualities of which he could be proud, while he would not otherwise reach for what he shares with so many millions. He who possesses significant personal merits will rather recognise the defects of his own nation, as he has them constantly before his eyes, most clearly. But that poor blighter who has nothing in the world of which he can be proud, latches onto the last means of being proud, the nation to which he belongs to. Thus he recovers and is now in gratitude ready to defend with hands and feet all errors and follies which are its own.
- Kap. II
- The cheapest form of pride however is national pride. For it reveals in the one thus afflicted the lack of individual qualities of which he could be proud, while he would not otherwise reach for what he shares with so many millions. He who possesses significant personal merits will rather recognise the defects of his own nation, as he has them constantly before his eyes, most clearly. But that poor blighter who has nothing in the world of which he can be proud, latches onto the last means of being proud, the nation to which he belongs to. Thus he recovers and is now in gratitude ready to defend with hands and feet all errors and follies which are its own.
- Je weniger einer, in Folge objektiver oder subjektiver Bedingungen, nötig hat, mit den Menschen in Berührung zu kommen, desto besser ist er daran.
- The less one, as a result of objective or subjective conditions, has to come into contact with people, the better off one is for it.
- Was nun andrerseits die Menschen gesellig macht, ist ihre Unfähigkeit, die Einsamkeit und in dieser sich selbst zu ertragen.
- What now on the other hand makes people sociable is their incapacity to endure solitude and thus themselves.
- Our moral virtues benefit mainly other people; intellectual virtues, on the other hand, benefit primarily ourselves; therefore the former make us universally popular, the latter unpopular.
- The result of this mental dullness is that inner vacuity and emptiness that is stamped on innumerable faces and also betrays itself in a constant and lively attention to all events in the external world, even the most trivial. This vacuity is the real source of boredom and always craves for external excitement in order to set the mind and spirits in motion through something. Therefore in the choice thereof it is not fastidious, as is testified by the miserable and wretched pastimes to which people have recourse. … The principal result of this inner vacuity is the craze for society, diversion, amusement, and luxury of every kind which lead many to extravagance and so to misery. Nothing protects us so surely from this wrong turning as inner wealth, the wealth of the mind, for the more eminent it becomes, the less room does it leave for boredom. The inexhaustible activity of ideas, their constantly renewed play with the manifold phenomena of the inner and outer worlds, the power and urge always to make different combinations of them, all these put the eminent mind, apart from moments of relaxation, quite beyond the reach of boredom.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 329–330
- Der Philister … ist demnach ein Mensch ohne geistige Bedürfnisse. Hieraus nun folgt gar mancherlei: erstlich, in Hinsicht auf ihn selbst, daß er ohne geistige Genüsse bleibt; nach dem schon erwähnten Grundsatz: il n’est pas de vrais plaisirs qu’avec de vrais besoins.
- The Philistine … is a man without intellectual needs. Now it follows from this that, as regards himself, he is left without any intellectual pleasures in accordance with the principle, il n’est pas de vrais plaisirs qu’avec de vrais besoins. [There are no true pleasures without true needs.]
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 344
- The Philistine … is a man without intellectual needs. Now it follows from this that, as regards himself, he is left without any intellectual pleasures in accordance with the principle, il n’est pas de vrais plaisirs qu’avec de vrais besoins. [There are no true pleasures without true needs.]
- Kein Drang nach Erkenntniß und Einsicht, um ihrer selbst Willen, belebt sein [des Philisters] Daseyn, auch keiner nach eigentlich ästhetischen Genüssen, als welcher dem ersteren durchaus verwandt ist. Was dennoch von Genüssen solcher Art etwan Mode, oder Auktorität, ihm aufdringt, wird er als eine Art Zwangsarbeit möglichst kurz abthun.
- His [the Philistine’s] existence is not animated by any keen desire for knowledge and insight for their own sake, or by any desire for really aesthetic pleasures which is so entirely akin to it. If, however, any pleasures of this kind are forced on him by fashion or authority, he will dispose of them as briefly as possible as a kind of compulsory labour.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 344
- His [the Philistine’s] existence is not animated by any keen desire for knowledge and insight for their own sake, or by any desire for really aesthetic pleasures which is so entirely akin to it. If, however, any pleasures of this kind are forced on him by fashion or authority, he will dispose of them as briefly as possible as a kind of compulsory labour.
- Sich Alles, was zum leiblichen Wohlseyn beiträgt, zu verschaffen, ist der Zweck seines Lebens. Glücklich genug, wenn dieser ihm viel zu schaffen macht! Denn, sind jene Güter ihm schon zum voraus oktroyirt; so fällt er unausbleiblich der Langenweile anheim.
- The purpose of his [the Philistine’s] life is to procure for himself everything that contributes to bodily welfare. He is happy enough when this causes him a lot of trouble. For if those good things are heaped on him in advance, he will inevitably lapse into boredom.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 344
- The purpose of his [the Philistine’s] life is to procure for himself everything that contributes to bodily welfare. He is happy enough when this causes him a lot of trouble. For if those good things are heaped on him in advance, he will inevitably lapse into boredom.
- Ball, Theater, Gesellschaft, Kartenspiel, Hasardspiel, Pferde, Weiber, Trinken, Reisen, … reicht dies Alles gegen die Langeweile nicht aus, wo Mangel an geistigen Bedürfnissen die geistigen Genüsse unmöglich macht. Daher auch ist dem Philister ein dumpfer, trockener Ernst, der sich dem thierischen nähert, eigen und charakteristisch.
- Dancing, the theatre, society, card-playing, games of chance, horses, women, drinking, traveling, and so on … are not enough to ward off boredom where intellectual pleasures are rendered impossible by lack of intellectual needs. Thus a peculiar characteristic of the Philistine is a dull, dry seriousness akin to that of animals.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 344
- Dancing, the theatre, society, card-playing, games of chance, horses, women, drinking, traveling, and so on … are not enough to ward off boredom where intellectual pleasures are rendered impossible by lack of intellectual needs. Thus a peculiar characteristic of the Philistine is a dull, dry seriousness akin to that of animals.
- From the fundamental nature of the Philistine, it follows that, in regard to others, as he has no intellectual but only physical needs, he will seek those who are capable of satisfying the latter not the former. And so of all the demands he makes of others the very smallest will be that of any outstanding intellectual abilities. On the contrary, when he comes across these they will excite his antipathy and even hatred. For here he has a hateful feeling of inferiority and also a dull secret envy which he most carefully attempts to conceal even from himself; but in this way it grows sometimes into a feeling of secret rage and rancour. Therefore it will never occur to him to assess his own esteem and respect in accordance with such qualities, but they will remain exclusively reserved for rank and wealth, power and influence, as being in his eyes the only real advantages to excel in which is also his desire.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 344–345
- A great affliction of all Philistines is that idealities afford them no entertainment, but to escape from boredom they are always in need of realities.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 345
- Epicurus, the great teacher of happiness, has correctly and finely divided human needs into three classes. First there are the natural and necessary needs which, if they are not satisfied, cause pain. Consequently, they are only victus et amictus [food and clothing] and are easy to satisfy. Then we have those that are natural yet not necessary, that is, the needs for sexual satisfaction. … These needs are more difficult to satisfy. Finally, there are those that are neither natural nor necessary, the needs for luxury, extravagance, pomp, and splendour, which are without end and very difficult to satisfy.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 346
- It is difficult, if not impossible, to define the limit of our reasonable desires in respect of possessions.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 346
- Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 347
- For the purpose of acquiring gain, everything else is pushed aside or thrown overboard, for example, as is philosophy by the professors of philosophy.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 347
- People are often reproached because their desires are directed mainly to money and they are fonder of it than of anything else. Yet it is natural and even inevitable for them to love that which, as an untiring Proteus, is ready at any moment to convert itself into the particular object of our fickle desires and manifold needs. Thus every other blessing can satisfy only one desire and one need; for instance, food is good only to the hungry, wine only for the healthy, medicine for the sick, a fur coat for winter, women for youth, and so on. Consequently, all these are only … relatively good. Money alone is the absolutely good thing because it meets not merely one need in concreto, but needs generally in abstracto.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 347
- Means at our disposal should be regarded as a bulwark against the many evils and misfortunes that can occur. We should not regard such wealth as a permission or even an obligation to procure for ourselves the pleasures of the world.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 348
- People who originally have no means but are ultimately able to earn a great deal, through whatever talents they may possess, almost always come to think that these are permanent capital and that what they gain through them is interest. Accordingly, they do not put aside part of their earnings to form a permanent capital, but spend their money as fast as they earn it. But they are then often reduced to poverty because their earnings decrease or come to an end after their talent, which was of a transitory nature, is exhausted, as happens, for example, in the case of almost all the fine arts; or because it could be brought to bear only under a particular set of circumstances that has ceased to exist.
- E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 348
Counsels and Maxims
- Counsels and Maxims, as translated by T. Bailey Saunders (also on Wikisource: Counsels and Maxims).
- the teaching of my philosophy… that our whole existence is something which had better not have been, and that to disown and disclaim it is the highest wisdom.
- Ch 1[1]
- The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 1, § 1
- Do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred. Evening is like old age: we are languid, talkative, silly. Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 2: Our Relation To Ourselves
- All the cruelty and torment of which the world is full is in fact merely the necessary result of the totality of the forms under which the will to live is objectified.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 14, § 164
- The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 1, § 17
- If you feel irritated by the absurd remarks of two people whose conversation you happen to overhear, you should imagine that you are listening to a dialogue of two fools in a comedy.
- T. B. Saunders, trans., § 38
- How very paltry and limited the normal human intellect is, and how little lucidity there is in the human consciousness, may be judged from the fact that, despite the ephemeral brevity of human life, the uncertainty of our existence and the countless enigmas which press upon us from all sides, everyone does not continually and ceaselessly philosophize, but that only the rarest of exceptions do.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 3, § 39
- Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment — a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man’s existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 13, § 160
- Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 19, § 233
- Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 20, § 242
- Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 21, § 255
- As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself; because only through ordering what you know by comparing every truth with every other truth can you take complete possession of your knowledge and get it into your power. You can think about only what you know, so you ought to learn something; on the other hand, you can know only what you have thought about.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 22, § 257 “On Thinking for Yourself” as translated in Essays and Aphorisms(1970) as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
- Variant translation: Just as the largest library, badly arranged, is not so useful as a very moderate one that is well arranged, so the greatest amount of knowledge, if not elaborated by our own thoughts, is worth much less than a far smaller volume that has been abundantly and repeatedly thought over.
- Truth that has been merely learned is like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a waxen nose; at best, like a nose made out of another’s flesh; it adheres to us only because it is put on. But truth acquired by thinking of our own is like a natural limb; it alone really belongs to us. This is the fundamental difference between the thinker and the mere man of learning. The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks for himself resemble a fine painting, where the light and shade are correct, the tone sustained, the colour perfectly harmonised; it is true to life. On the other hand, the intellectual attainments of the mere man of learning are like a large palette, full of all sorts of colours, which at most are systematically arranged, but devoid of harmony, connection and meaning.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 22, § 261
- Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up, which will of course happen frequently enough even to the best heads; but to banish your own thoughts so as to take up a book is a sin against the holy ghost; it is like deserting untrammeled nature to look at a herbarium or engravings of landscapes.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 22, § 261
- Variant translations:
- Reading is thinking with some one else’s head instead of one’s own.
- As translated by T. Bailey Saunders
- Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.
- Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 23, § 296a
- Hatred is a thing of the heart, contempt a thing of the head. Hatred and contempt are decidedly antagonistic towards one another and mutually exclusive. A great deal of hatred, indeed, has no other source than a compelled respect for the superior qualities of some other person; conversely, if you were to consider hating every miserable wretch you met you would have your work cut out: it is much easier to despise them one and all. True, genuine contempt, which is the obverse of true, genuine pride, stays hidden away in secret and lets no one suspect its existence: for if you let a person you despise notice the fact, you thereby reveal a certain respect for him, inasmuch as you want him to know how low you rate him — which betrays not contempt but hatred, which excludes contempt and only affects it. Genuine contempt, on the other hand, is the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 24, § 324
- Variant translation: Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head.
- As translated by Eric F. J. Payne
- The word of man is the most durable of all material.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 25, sect. 298
- Jede Trennung gibt einen Vorgeschmack des Todes und jedes Wiedersehen einen Vorgeschmack der Auferstehung.
- Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 26, § 310, as translated by Eric F. J. Payne
- We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 26, sect. 311a
- Money is human happiness in the abstract: he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes his heart entirely to money.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 26, § 320
- Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 26, § 321
- Only a male intellect clouded by the sexual drive could call the stunted, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged sex the fair sex.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 27, § 369
- In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one’s rights and double one’s duties.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 27, § 370
- Variant translation: To marry is to halve your rights and double your duties.
- A man’s face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man’s thoughts and aspirations.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 29, § 377
- That the outer man is a picture of the inner, and the face an expression and revelation of the whole character, is a presumption likely enough in itself, and therefore a safe one to go on; borne out as it is by the fact that people are always anxious to see anyone who has made himself famous …. Photography … offers the most complete satisfaction of our curiosity.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 29, § 377
- As the strata of the earth preserve in succession the living creatures of past epochs, so the shelves of libraries preserve in succession the errors of the past and their expositions, which like the former were very lively and made a great commotion in their own age but now stand petrified and stiff in a place where only the literary palaeontologist regards them.
- Vol. 2 “On Books and Writing” as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
- Two Chinamen visiting Europe went to the theatre for the first time. One of them occupied himself with trying to understand the theatrical machinery, which he succeeded in doing. The other, despite his ignorance of the language, sought to unravel the meaning of the play. The former is like the astronomer, the latter the philosopher.
- Vol. 2 “On Various Subjects” as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
- The animals are much more content with mere existence than we are; the plants are wholly so; and man is so according to how dull and insensitive he is. The animal’s life consequently contains less suffering but also less pleasure than the human’s, the direct reason being that on the one hand it is free from care and anxiety and the torments that attend them, but on the other is without hope and therefore has no share in that anticipation of a happy future which, together with the enchanting products of the imagination which accompany it, is the source of most of our greatest joys and pleasures. The animal lacks both anxiety and hope because its consciousness is restricted to what is clearly evident and thus to the present moment: the animal is the present incarnate.
- Vol. 2 “On the Suffering of the World” as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
- Talent works for money and fame; the motive which moves genius to productivity is, on the other hand, less easy to determine. It isn’t money, for genius seldom gets any. It isn’t fame: fame is too uncertain and, more closely considered, of too little worth. Nor is it strictly for its own pleasure, for the great exertion involved almost outweighs the pleasure. It is rather an instinct of a unique sort by virtue of which the individual possessed of genius is impelled to express what he has seen and felt in enduring works without being conscious of any further motivation. It takes place, by and large, with the same sort of necessity as a tree brings forth fruit, and demands of the world no more than a soil on which the individual can flourish.
- Vol. 2 “On Philosophy and the Intellect” as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
- The poet presents the imagination with images from life and human characters and situations, sets them all in motion and leaves it to the beholder to let these images take his thoughts as far as his mental powers will permit. This is why he is able to engage men of the most differing capabilities, indeed fools and sages together. The philosopher, on the other hand, presents not life itself but the finished thoughts which he has abstracted from it and then demands that the reader should think precisely as, and precisely as far as, he himself thinks. That is why his public is so small.
- Vol. 2 “On Philosophy and the Intellect” as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
- Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.
- Vol. 2 “Further Psychological Observations” as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
- Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies.
- Vol. 2 “On Women” as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
- Only a male intellect clouded by the sexual drive could call the stunted, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged sex the fair sex: for it is with this drive that all its beauty is bound up. More fittingly than the fair sex, women could be called the unaesthetic sex. Neither for music, nor poetry, nor the plastic arts do they possess any real feeling or receptivity: if they affect to do so, it is merely mimicry in service of their effort to please. This comes from the fact that they are incapable of taking a purely objective interest in anything whatever, and the reason for this is, I think, as follows. Man strives in everything for a direct domination over things, either by comprehending or by subduing them. But woman is everywhere and always relegated to a merely indirect domination, which is achieved by means of man, who is consequently the only thing she has to dominate directly. Thus it lies in the nature of women to regard everything simply as a means of capturing a man, and their interest in anything else is only simulated, is no more than a detour, i.e. amounts to coquetry and mimicry.
- Vol. 2 “On Women” as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
- Writers may be classified as meteors, planets, and fixed stars. A meteor makes a striking effect for a moment. You look up and cry “There!” and it is gone forever. Planets and wandering stars last a much longer time. They often outshine the fixed stars and are confounded by them by the inexperienced; but this only because they are near. It is not long before they must yield their place; nay, the light they give is reflected only, and the sphere of their influence is confined to their orbit — their contemporaries. Their path is one of change and movement, and with the circuit of a few years their tale is told. Fixed stars are the only ones that are constant; their position in the firmament is secure; they shine with a light of their own; their effect today is the same as it was yesterday, because, having no parallax, their appearance does not alter with a difference in our standpoint. They belong not to one system, one nation only, but to the universe. And just because they are so very far away, it is usually many years before their light is visible to the inhabitants of this earth.
- Vol. 2 “The Art of Literature” as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
- For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.
- The Art of Literature
Not as yet placed by section or chapter:
- Cited as from Counsels and Maxims but without further information
- A man of intellect is like an artist who gives a concert without any help from anyone else, playing on a single instrument — a piano, say, which is a little orchestra in itself. Such a man is a little world in himself; and the effect produced by various instruments together, he produces single-handed, in the unity of his own consciousness. Like the piano, he has no place in a symphony; he is a soloist and performs by himself — in solitude, it may be; or if in the company with other instruments, only as principal; or for setting the tone, as in singing.
- In youth it is the outward aspect of things that most engages us; while in age, thought or reflection is the predominating quality of the mind. Hence, youth is the time for poetry, and age is more inclined to philosophy. In practical affairs it is the same: a man shapes his resolutions in youth more by the impression that the outward world makes upon him; whereas, when he is old, it is thought that determines his actions.
- Allerdings ist das Leben nicht eigentlich da, um genossen, sondern um überstanden, abgethan zu werden…
- There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome — to be got over.
Studies in Pessimism
- Full text online on Wikisource
- If you try to imagine, as nearly as you can, what an amount of misery, pain and suffering of every kind the sun shines upon in its course, you will admit that it would be much better if, on the earth as little as on the moon, the sun were able to call forth the phenomena of life; and if, here as there, the surface were still in a crystalline state.
- “On the Sufferings of the World”
- There are two things which make it impossible to believe that this world is the successful work of an all-wise, all-good, and, at the same time, all-powerful Being; firstly, the misery which abounds in it everywhere; and secondly, the obvious imperfection of its highest product, man, who is a burlesque of what he should be.
- “On the Sufferings of the World”
- If two men who were friends in their youth meet again when they are old, after being separated for a life-time, the chief feeling they will have at the sight of each other will be one of complete disappointment at life as a whole; because their thoughts will be carried back to that earlier time when life seemed so fair as it lay spread out before them in the rosy light of dawn, promised so much — and then performed so little.
- “On the Sufferings of the World”
- In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a blessing that we do not know what is really going to happen. Could we foresee it, there are times when children might seem like innocent prisoners, condemned, not to death, but to life, and as yet all unconscious of what their sentence means.
- “On the Sufferings of the World”
- Hatred comes from the heart; contempt from the head; and neither feeling is quite within our control.
- “Psychological Observations”
- Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
- “Psychological Observations”
- Every parting gives a foretaste of death; every coming together again a foretaste of the resurrection.
- “Psychological Observations”
- Dissimulation is innate in woman, and almost as much a quality of the stupid as of the clever.
- “Of Women”
- There are 80,000 prostitutes in London alone and what are they, if not bloody sacrifices on the altar of monogamy?
- “Of Women”
- Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but also a disruption of thought.
- “On Noise”
Religion: A Dialogue
- Religion: A Dialogue
- Monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods, that razing of Indian temples and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun 3,000 years: just because a jealous god had said, ‘Thou shalt make no graven image.’
On Books and Reading
- On Books and Reading (Ueber Lesen und Bücher)
Chapter XXIV from Parerga und Paralipomena II (1851)
- The heavy armor becomes the light dress of childhood; the pain is brief, the joy unending.
- Original:
- Der schwere Panzer wird zum Flügelkleide
- Kurz ist der Schmerz, unendlich ist die Freude.
- Literally:
- The heavy armor becomes the winged dress
- brief is the pain, unending is the joy.
Not yet placed by volume, chapter or section
- Quotes cited as from Parerga and Paralipomena, but without further translation or section information.
- Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another’s money. Idiots!
- …in der ganzen Natur, mit dem Grad der Intelligenz die Fähigkeit zum Schmerze sich steigert, also ebenfalls erst hier ihre höchste Stufe erreicht.
- Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.
- The Wisdom of Life. Chapter II. Personality, or What a Man Is: Footnote 19
Other
- Die Wahrheit kann warten: denn sie hat ein langes Leben vor sich.
- The truth can wait, for she lives a long life.
- Willen in der Natur (On the Will in Nature), 1836; in the chapter Einleitung (Introduction)
- Variant translation by Karl Hillebrand:
Truth can bide its time, for it has a long life before it.
- The truth can wait, for she lives a long life.
- If at times I have thought myself unfortunate, it is because of a confusion, an error. I have mistaken myself for someone else… Who am I really? I am the author of The World as Will and Representation, I am the one who has given an answer to the mystery of Being that will occupy the thinkers of future centuries. That is what I am, and who can dispute it in the years of life that still remain for me?
- From The Total Library by Jorge Luis Borges, 1999
- As my own father was sick, and miserably tied to his invalid’s chair, he would have been abandoned had not an old servant performed for him a so-called service of love. My mother gave parties while he was perishing in solitude, and amused herself while he was suffering bitter agonies
- Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy by Rüdiger Safranski (trans. Ewald Osers)
Essays
- Quotes sourced to various essays, not yet sourced to the original German volumes.
- Der allgemeine Ueberblick zeigt uns, als die beiden Feinde des menschlichen Glückes, den Schmerz und die Langeweile.
- The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.
- Personality; or, What a Man Is
- A man who has no mental needs, because his intellect is of the narrow and normal amount, is, in the strict sense of the word, what is called a philistine.
- Personality; or, What a Man Is
- Intellect is invisible to the man who has none.
- Our Relation to Others, § 23
- There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life.
- Our Relation to Others, § 24
- To free a man from error is to give, not to take away. Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth. Error always does harm; sooner or later it will bring mischief to the man who harbors it. Then give up deceiving people; confess ignorance of what you don’t know, and leave everyone to form his own articles of faith for himself. Perhaps they won’t turn out so bad, especially as they’ll rub one another’s corners down, and mutually rectify mistakes. The existence of many views will at any rate lay a foundation of tolerance. Those who possess knowledge and capacity may betake themselves to the study of philosophy, or even in their own persons carry the history of philosophy a step further.
- “Religion: A Dialogue.”
- Variant translation: To free a man from error does not mean to take something from him, but to give him something.
- Men of learning are those who have read the contents of books. Thinkers, geniuses, and those who have enlightened the world and furthered the race of men, are those who have made direct use of the book of the world.
- “Thinking for Oneself”
- In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.
- “The Art of Controversy” as translated by T. Bailey Saunders
- The chief objection I have to Pantheism is that it says nothing. To call the world “God” is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym for the word “world”.
- On Pantheism as quoted in Faiths of Famous Men in Their Own Words (1900) by John Kenyon Kilbourn; also in Religion: A Dialogue and Other Essays (2007), p. 40
- Jede menschliche Vollkommenheit ist einem Fehler verwandt, in welchen überzugehn sie droht.
- Every human perfection is linked to an error which it threatens to become.
- Zur Ethik
- Every human perfection is linked to an error which it threatens to become.
- Alles Wollen entspringt aus Bedürfnis, also aus Mangel, also aus Leiden.
- All wanting comes from need, therefore from lack, therefore from suffering.
- Welt und Mensch II, p. 230ff
- All wanting comes from need, therefore from lack, therefore from suffering.
- Es gibt nur eine Heilkraft, und das ist die Natur; in Salben und Pillen steckt keine. Höchstens können sie der Heilkraft der Natur einen Wink geben, wo etwas für sie zu tun ist.
- There is only one healing force, and that is nature; in pills and ointments there is none. At most they can give the healing force of nature a hint about where there is something for it to do.
- Neue Paralipomena
- There is only one healing force, and that is nature; in pills and ointments there is none. At most they can give the healing force of nature a hint about where there is something for it to do.
- If a big diamond is cut up into pieces, it immediately loses its value as a whole; or if an army is scattered or divided into small bodies, it loses all its power; and in the same way a great intellect has no more power than an ordinary one as soon as it is interrupted, disturbed, distracted, or diverted; for its superiority entails that it concentrates all its strength on one point and object, just as a concave mirror concentrates all the rays of light thrown upon it. Noisy interruption prevents this concentration. This is why the most eminent intellects have always been strongly averse to any kind of disturbance, interruption and distraction, and above everything to that violent interruption which is caused by noise; other people do not take any particular notice of this sort of thing.
- On Noise
- So that it will be found that the fundamental fault in the character of women is that they have no “sense of justice .” This arises from their deficiency in the power of reasoning already referred to, and reflection, but is also partly due to the fact that Nature has not destined them, as the weaker sex, to be dependent on strength but on cunning; this is why they are instinctively crafty, and have an ineradicable tendency to lie.
- On Women
On Authorship and Style
“On Authorship and Style” as translated by Mrs. Rudolf Dircks; On Authorship and On Style translated by T. B. Saunders on Wikisource.
- There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject’s sake, and those who write for writing’s sake. The first kind have had thoughts or experiences which seem to them worth communicating, while the second kind need money and consequently write for money.
- No greater mistake can be made than to imagine that what has been written latest is always the more correct; that what is written later on is an improvement on what was written previously; and that every change means progress. Men who think and have correct judgment, and people who treat their subject earnestly, are all exceptions only. Vermin is the rule everywhere in the world: it is always at hand and busily engaged in trying to improve in its own way upon the mature deliberations of the thinkers.
- A book can never be anything more than the impression of its author’s thoughts [Ein Buch kann nie mehr seyn, als der Abdruck der Gedanken des Verfassers]. The value of these thoughts lies either in the matter about which he has thought, or in the form in which he develops his matter — that is to say, what he has thought about it.
- For a work to become immortal it must possess so many excellences that it will not be easy to find a man who understands and values them all; so that there will be in all ages men who recognise and appreciate some of these excellences; by this means the credit of the work will be retained throughout the long course of centuries and ever-changing interests, for, as it is appreciated first in this sense, then in that, the interest is never exhausted.
- The little honesty that exists among authors is discernible in the unconscionable way they misquote from the writings of others.
- Truth that is naked is the most beautiful, and the simpler its expression the deeper is the impression it makes; this is partly because it gets unobstructed hold of the hearer’s mind without his being distracted by secondary thoughts, and partly because he feels that here he is not being corrupted or deceived by the arts of rhetoric, but that the whole effect is got from the thing itself.
- The law of simplicity and naïveté applies to all fine art, for it is compatible with what is most sublime.
True brevity of expression consists in a man only saying what is worth saying, while avoiding all diffuse explanations of things which every one can think out for himself; that is, it consists in his correctly distinguishing between what is necessary and what is superfluous. On the other hand, one should never sacrifice clearness, to say nothing of grammar, for the sake of being brief. To impoverish the expression of a thought, or to obscure or spoil the meaning of a period for the sake of using fewer words shows a lamentable want of judgment.
Attributed
- Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.
- Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.
- Einstein paraphrasing Schopenhauer. Reportedly from On The Freedom Of The Will (1839), as translated in The Philosophy of American History: The Historical Field Theory (1945) by Morris Zucker, p. 531
- Variant translations:
- Man can do what he wants but he cannot want what he wants.
- As quoted in The Motivated Brain: A Neurophysiological Analysis of Human Behavior (1991) by Pavel Vasilʹevich Simonov, p. 198
- We can do what we wish, but we can only wish what we must.
- As quoted by Einstein in “What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck” The Saturday Evening Post (26 October 1929) p. 17. A scan of the article is available online here (see p. 114).
- Man can do what he wants but he cannot want what he wants.
- Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.
Quotes about Schopenhauer
- Alphabetized by author
- Who knew that if you merely represent the thought of Nietzsche or Schopenhauer in a fun way it would find such an audience? Some things, it seems, are always green.
- BAP, America’s Delusional Elite Is Done, The American Mind, 22 October 2019
- The bold theories and opinions expressed in Schopenhauer’s works differ widely with those of the majority of our orthodox scientists… Every new phenomenon which they find themselves unable to explain, is triturated, compounded into incense, and burned on the altar of the goddess who patronizes modern scientists. No one can better treat his subject than does Schopenhauer in his Parerga. In this work he discusses at length animal magnetism, clairvoyance, sympathetic cures, seership, magic, omens, ghost-seeing, and other spiritual matters. “All these manifestations,” he says, “are branches of one and the same tree, and furnish us with irrefutable proofs of the existence of a chain of beings…”
- H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, Vol. 1, Chapter 2, p. 59, Schopenhauer’s Great Parerga
- Keats, entirely a stranger to error, could believe that the nightingale enchanting him was the same one Ruth heard amid the alien corn of Bethlehem in Judah; Stevenson posits a single bird that consumes the centuries: “the nightingale that devours time.” Schopenhauer — impassioned, lucid Schopenhauer — provides a reason: the pure corporeal immediacy in which animals live, oblivious to death and memory. He then adds, not without a smile: Whoever hears me assert that the grey cat playing just now in the yard is the same one that did jumps and tricks there five hundred years ago will think whatever he likes of me, but it is a stranger form of madness to imagine that the present-day cat is fundamentally an entirely different one.
- Jorge Luis Borges in “A History of Eternity” as translated in Selected Non-Fictions Vol. 1, (1999), edited by Eliot Weinberger
- In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a disbeliever. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer’s saying, that “a man can do as he will, but not will as he will,” has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others’. This feeling mercifully mitigates the sense of responsibility which so easily becomes paralyzing, and it prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it conduces to a view of life in which humor, above all, has its due place.
- Albert Einstein in “Mein Weltbild” (1931) [“My World-view”, or “My View of the World” or “The World As I See It”], translated as the title essay of the 1949 book The World As I See It. Various translated editions have been published of this essay; or portions of it, including one titled “What I Believe”; another compilation which includes it is Ideas and Opinions (1954)
- Variants: Ich glaube nicht an die Freiheit des Willens. Schopenhauers Wort: »Der Mensch kann wohl tun was er will, aber er kann nicht wollen, was er will.« begleitet mich in allen Lebenslagen und versöhnt mich mit den Handlungen der Menschen, auch wenn sie mir recht schmerzlich sind. Diese Erkenntnis von der Unfreiheit des Willens schützt mich davor, mich selbst und die Mitmenschen als handelnde und urteilende Individuen allzu ernst zu nehmen und den guten Humor zu verlieren.
- I do not believe in freedom of will. Schopenhauer’s words, “Man can indeed do what he wants, but he cannot want what he wants“, accompany me in all life situations and console me in my dealings with people, even those that are really painful to me. This recognition of the unfreedom of the will protects me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and judging individuals and losing good humour.
- Mein Glaubensbekenntnis (August 1932)
- Part of the cause of pessimism, in Schopenhauer and his contemporaries, lay in their romantic attitudes and expectations. Youth expects too much of the· world; pessimism is the morning after optimism, just as 1815 had to pay for 1789. The romantic exaltation and liberation of feeling, instinct and will, and the romantic contempt for intellect, restraint, and order, brought their natural penalties; for “the world,” as Horace Walpole said, “is a comedy for those who think, but a tragedy for those who feel.”… Is it true that ”he that increaseth lmowledge increaseth sorrow,” and that it is the most highly organized beings that suffer most? Yes; but it is also true that the growth of knowledge increases joy as well as sorrow, and that the subtlest delights, as well as the keenest pains, are reserved for the developed soul. Voltaire rightly preferred the Brahmin’s ”unhappy” to the blissful ignorance of the peasant woman; we wish to experience life keenly and deeply, even at the cost of pain; we wish to venture into its innermost secrets, even at the cost of disillusionment… There are other difficulties, more technical and less vital, in this remarkable and stimulating philosophy. How can suicide ever occur in a world where the only real force is the will to live? How can the intellect, begotten and brought up as servant of the will, ever achieve independence and objectivity? Does genius lie in knowledge divorced from will, or does it contain, as its driving force” an immense power of will, even a large alloy of personal ambition and. conceit? Is madness connected with genius in general, or rather with only the “romantic” type of genius (Byron, Shelley, Poe, Heine, Swinburne, Strindberg, Dostoievski, etc.); and is not the “classic” and profounder type of genius exceptionally sound (Socrates, Plato, Spinoza, Bacon, Newton, Voltaire, Goethe, Darwin, Whitman, etc.)? What if the proper function of intellect and philosophy is not the denial of the will but the coordination of desires into a united and harmonious, will? What if “will” itself, except as the unified product of such coordination, is a mythical abstraction, as shadowy as “force”?…
- Will Durant, Story of Philosophy
- He was the first to speak of the suffering of the world, which visibly and glaringly surrounds us, and of confusion, passion, evil — all those things which the [other philosophers] hardly seemed to notice and always tried to resolve into all-embracing harmony and comprehensiblility. Here at last was a philosopher who had the courage to see that all was not for the best in the fundaments of the universe.
- Carl Jung, in Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961), p. 69
- One who believes that the pain in the world outweighs the joy, and expresses that unhappy conviction, only adds to the pain. Schopenhauer is an enemy to the race. Even if he earnestly believed that this is the most wretched of possible worlds, he should not promulgate a doctrine which robs men of the incentive to fight with circumstance. If Life gave him ashes for bread, it was his fault. Life is a fair field, and the right will prosper if we stand by our guns.
- Helen Keller, in Optimism (1903)
- He speaks to me as no other philosopher does, direct and in his own human voice, a fellow spirit, a penetratingly perceptive friend, with a hand on my elbow and a twinkle in his eye. Although I frequently do not agree with what he says, I always listen to him.
- Bryan Magee, in Confessions of a Philosopher: A Personal Journey through Western Philosophy from Plato to Popper (1999), p. 373
- When I met Borges some time ago and remarked that I was about to embark on writing a book about Schopenhauer, he became excited and started talked volubly about how much Schopenhauer had meant to him. It was the desire to read Schopenhauer in the original, he said, that had made him learn German; and when people asked him, which they often had, why he with his love of intricate structure had never attempted a systematic exposition of the world-view which underlay his writings, his reply was that he did not do it because it had already been done by Schopenhauer.
- Bryan Magee, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer, p. 389
- We are struck by the psychological force and even fierceness with which he reveals the deepest recesses of the human heart.
- Eric F. J. Payne, in his introduction to his 1958 translation of The World as Will and Representation
- Schopenhauer went on from there to vindicate Indian philosophy’s rightful place in the world. He even went so far as to express pleasure at the continuous failure of West-Christian proselytism in Asia …. His anti-Christianism was largely based on a fierce anti-Biblism; … he attributed systematically to subtle influences originating on the “holy-banks of the Ganges.
- De Riencourt, Amaury The soul of India Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York 1960 p274-275 quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication.
- I have read Schopenhauer at the age of twelve with no bewilderment and no contempt of his contempt for the world and its strange inhabitants, and no contempt for the strange inhabitant himself.
- William Saroyan, in Hello Out There (1941)
- Criminal history shows us how many torturers of men, and murderers, have first been torturers of animals. The manner in which a nation in the aggregate treats animals, is one chief measure of its real civilization. The Latin races, as we know, come forth badly from this examination; we Germans, not half well enough. Buddhism has done more in this direction than Christianity, and Schopenhauer more than all ancient and modern philosophers together. The warm sympathy with sentient Nature which pervades all the writings of Schopenhauer, is one of the most pleasing aspects of his thoroughly intellectual, yet often unhealthy and unprofitable philosophy.
- David Strauss, The Old Faith and the New (Der alte und der neue Glaube, translated from the 6th edition by M. Blind, New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1873), vol. II, part IV, ch. 71, pp. 59-60
- You are not an evil human; you are not without intellect and education; you have everything that could make you a credit to human society. Moreover, I am acquainted with your heart and know that few are better, but you are nevertheless irritating and unbearable, and I consider it most difficult to live with you.
All of your good qualities become obscured by your super-cleverness and are made useless to the world merely because of your rage at wanting to know everything better than others; of wanting to improve and master what you cannot command. With this you embitter the people around you, since no one wants to be improved or enlightened in such a forceful way, least of all by such an insignificant individual as you still are; no one can tolerate being reproved by you, who also still show so many weaknesses yourself, least of all in your adverse manner, which in oracular tones, proclaims this is so and so, without ever supposing an objection.
If you were less like you, you would only be ridiculous, but thus as you are, you are highly annoying.- Letter from Schopenhauer’s mother, Johanna Schopenhauer, to her son. November 6, 1807.