Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes
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However, for the man who studies to gain insight, books and studies are merely rungs of the ladder on which he climbs to the summit of knowledge. As soon as a rung has raised him up one step, he leaves it behind. On the other hand, the many who study in order to fill their memory do not use the rungs of the ladder for climbing, but take them off and load themselves with them to take away, rejoicing at the increasing weight of the burden. They remain below forever, because they bear what should have bourne them.
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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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All satisfaction, or what iscommonlycalled happiness, is really and essentially always negative only, and never positive.
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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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For what is modesty but hypocritical humility, by means of which, in a world swelling with vile envy, a man seeks to beg pardon for his excellences and merits from those who have none? For whoever attributes no merit to himself because he really has none is not modest, but merely honest.
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To gain anything we have longed for is only to discover how vain and empty it is; and even though we are always living in expectation of better things, at the same time we often repent and long to have the past back again.
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A man becomes a philosopher by reason of a certain perplexity, from which he seeks to free himself.
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Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.
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The heavy armor becomes the light dress of childhood; the pain is brief, the joy unending.
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...in the end every one stands alone, and the important thing is who it is that stands alone.
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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.
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Alles, alles kann einer vergessen, nur nicht sich selbst, sein eigenes Wesen.
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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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In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death.
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That which knows all things and is known by none is the subject.
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There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.
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There is something in us that is wiser than our head.
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Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.
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The ordinary method of education is to imprint ideas and opinions, in the strict sense of the word, prejudices, on the mind of the child, before it has had any but a very few particular observations. It is thus that he afterwards comes to view the world and gather experience through the medium of those ready-made ideas, rather than to let his ideas be formed for him out of his own experience of life, as they ought to be.
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The scenes and events of long ago, and the persons who took part in them, wear a charming aspect to the eye of memory, which sees only the outlines and takes no note of disagreeable details. The present enjoys no such advantage, and so it always seems defective.
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Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune.
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Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.
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They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.
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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.