Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes
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Scoundrels are always sociable.
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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.
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The eternal being..., as it lives in us, also lives in every animal.
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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.
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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.
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Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.
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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.
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The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.
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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.
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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.
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The old woman dies, the burden is lifted.
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All wanting comes from need, therefore from lack, therefore from suffering.
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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.
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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.
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Compassion is the basis of morality.
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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.
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What people commonly call Fate is, as a general rule, nothing but their own stupid and foolish conduct.
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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.
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The reason domestic pets are so lovable and so helpful to us is because they enjoy, quietly and placidly, the present moment.
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No one writes anything worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject.
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The truth can wait, for it lives a long life.
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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.
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Zu unserer Besserung bedürfen wir eines Spiegels.
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Marrying means doing whatever possible to become repulsed of each other.