Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes
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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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That I could clamber to the frozen moon. And draw the ladder after me.
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No one can transcend their own individuality.
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Whatever torch we kindle, and whatever space it may illuminate, our horizon will always remain encircled by the depth of night.
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The heavy armor becomes the light dress of childhood; the pain is brief, the joy unending.
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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.
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Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts.
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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.
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The greatest intellectual capacities are only found in connection with a vehement and passionate will.
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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.
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Men need some kind of external activity, because they are inactive within.
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Patriotism is the passion of fools and the most foolish of passions.
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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.
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In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one’s rights and double one’s duties.
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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.
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Die Gegenwart eines Gedankens ist wie die Gegenwart einer Geliebten.
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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Talent works for money and fame; the motive which moves genius to productivity is, on the other hand, less easy to determine.
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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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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.
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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.