Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes
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Every nation criticizes every other one - and they are all correct.
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All wanting comes from need, therefore from lack, therefore from suffering.
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Freedom of the press is to the machinery of the state what the safety valve is to the steam engine.
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First the truth is ridiculed. Then it meets outrage. Then it is said to have been obvious all along.
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What a man can do and suffer is unknown to himself till some occasion presents itself which draws out the hidden power. Just as one sees not in the water of an unruffled pond the fury and roar with which it can dash down a steep rock without injury to itself, or how high it is capable of rising; or as little as one can suspect the latent heat in ice-cold water.
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Unrest is the mark of existence.
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Die Gegenwart eines Gedankens ist wie die Gegenwart einer Geliebten.
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Marrying means doing whatever possible to become repulsed of each other.
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Every human perfection is allied to a defect into which it threatens to pass, but it is also true that every defect is allied to a perfection.
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That I could clamber to the frozen moon. And draw the ladder after me.
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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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Human existence is an error...it is bad today and every day it gets worse, until the worst happens.
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Hence, in all countries the chief occupation of society is card-playing, and it is the gauge of its value, and an outward sign that it is bankrupt in thought. Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another’s money. Idiots!
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No rose without a thorn but many a thorn without a rose.
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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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Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.
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In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin.
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One should use common words to say uncommon things.
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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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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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Patriotism is the passion of fools and the most foolish of passions.
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Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.
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The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy.
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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.