Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes
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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.
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Intellect is invisible to the man who has none.
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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.
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Most men are so thoroughly subjective that nothing really interests them but themselves.
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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.
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For the world is Hell, and men are on the one hand the tormented souls and on the other the devils in it.
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Night gives a black look to everything, whatever it may be.
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Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes.
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If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.
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It is only the hope of what is claimed that begets and nurishes the wish.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The common man is not concerned about the passage of time, the man of talent is driven by it.
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Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own.
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Music is the melody whose text is the world.
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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.
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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.
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Music is the answer to the mystery of life. The most profound of all the arts, It expresses the deepest thoughts of life.
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Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
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The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.
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To desire immortality is to desire the eternal perpetuation of a great mistake.