Quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer (Page 2 of 2)

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.

If I maintain my silence about my secret it is my prisoner...if I let it slip from my tongue, I am ITS prisoner.

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.

JedeTrennung gibt einenVorgeschmack desTodesund jedes Wiedersehen einenVorgeschmack der Auferstehung. Every parting is a foretaste of death, and every reunion a foretaste of resurrection.

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.

I believe that when death closes our eyes we shall awaken to a light, of which our sunlight is but the shadow.

Marrying means doing whatever possible to become repulsed of each other.

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!

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.

Truth is most beautiful undraped.

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.

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.

Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of ones own.

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.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.

To feel envy is human, to savour schadenfreude is devilish.

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.

It is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do.

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.

The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.

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.

Ordinary people think merely of spending time, great people think of using it.

Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.

Life is full of troubles and vexations, that one must either rise above it by means of corrected thoughts, or leave it.

We forfeit three quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.

Once can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.

When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process.

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in.

A truth, an insight, which you have slowly and laboriously puzzled out by thinking for yourself could easily have been found already written in a book; but it is a hundred times more valuable if you have arrived at it by thinking for yourself.

Talent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like the marksman who hits a target… which others cannot even see.

After your death, you will be what you were before your birth.

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.

The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.

It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us.

Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.

Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own.

In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.

If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.

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.

The word of man is the most durable of all material.

Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.

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.

The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.

I've never known any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage.

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 than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.

In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one's rights and double one's duties.

Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.

Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.

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.

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.

Compassion is the basis of morality.

The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.

Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.

Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed.