Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes
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There are three stages in the revelation of truth. The first is to be ridiculed, the second is to be resisted and the third is to be considered self-evident.
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As a general rule, the longer a man's fame is likely to last, the later it will be in coming; for all excellent products require time for their development.
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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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For, as you know, religions are like glow-worms; they shine only when it is dark.
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The life of every individual is really always a tragedy, but gone through in detail, it has the character of a comedy.
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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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Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.
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Means at our disposal should be regarded as a bulwark against the many evils and misfortunes that can occur. We should not regard such wealth as a permission or even an obligation to procure for ourselves the pleasures of the world.
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Every original idea is first ridiculed, then vigorously attacked, and finally taken for granted.
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A man can surely do what he wills to do, but cannot determine what he wills.
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In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.
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The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.
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In youth it is the outward aspect of things that most engages us; while in age, thought or reflection is the predominating qualityof the mind. Hence, youth is the time for poetry, and age is more inclined to philosophy. In practical affairs it is the same: a man shapes his resolutions in youth more by the impression that the outward world makes upon him; whereas, when he is old, it is thought that determines his actions.
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Alles, alles kann einer vergessen, nur nicht sich selbst, sein eigenes Wesen.
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Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, "Lighthouses" as the poet said "erected in the sea of time." They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind, Books are humanity in print.
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If at any moment Time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the miseries of boredom.
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Men need some kind of external activity, because they are inactive within.
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He who lives to see two or three generations is like a man who sits some time in the conjurer's booth at a fair, and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession. The tricks were meant to be seen only once; and when they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive, their effect is gone.
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Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.
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A word too much always defeats its purpose.
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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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There is something in us that is wiser than our head.
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We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.
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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.