Quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer (Page 2 of 2)

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!

What now on the other hand makes people sociable is their incapacity to endure solitude and thus themselves.

The reason domestic pets are so lovable and so helpful to us is because they enjoy, quietly and placidly, the present moment.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There are 80,000 prostitutes in London alone and what are they, if not bloody sacrifices on the alter of monogamy.

This our world, which is so real, with all its suns and milky ways is-nothing.

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.

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.

Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but also a disruption of thought.

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.

For the purpose of acquiring gain, everything else is pushed aside or thrown overboard, for example, as is philosophy by the professors of philosophy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Do not shorten the morning by getting up late; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred.

Poetry is related to philosophy as experience is related to empirical science.

On the path of actions, great heart is the chief recommendation; on that works, a great head.

We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.

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.

Our greatest sufferings do not lie in the present, as intuitive representations or immediate feeling, but rather in reason, as abstract concepts, tormenting thoughts.

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.

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.

To call the world God is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym.

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.

Life is neither to be wept over nor to be laughed at but to be understood.

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.

Freedom of the press is to the machinery of the state what the safety valve is to the steam engine.

No one reveals himself as he is; we all wear a mask and play a role.

The greatest intellectual capacities are only found in connection with a vehement and passionate will.

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.

Style is what gives value and currency to thoughts.

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.

Life to the great majority is only a constant struggle for mere existence, with the certainty of losing it at last.

The cause of laughter is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real project.

Happiness consists in frequent repetition of pleasure.

Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.

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.

Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination.

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!

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.

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.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone.

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.

Treat a work of art like a prince: let it speak to you first.

Truth that is naked is the most beautiful, and the simpler its expression the deeper is the impression it makes.

The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.

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.

A sense of humour is the only divine quality of man.

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.

Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.

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.

It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.

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.

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

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 fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.

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 more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.

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.

Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

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