Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes
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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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In truth the most striking figure for the relation of the two is that of the strong blind man carrying the sighted lame man on his shoulders.
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Every satisfaction he attains lays the seeds of some new desire, so that there is no end to the wishes of each individual will.
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Mankind cannot get on without a certain amount of absurdity.
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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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For, as you know, religions are like glow-worms; they shine only when it is dark.
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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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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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Every original idea is first ridiculed, then vigorously attacked, and finally taken for granted.
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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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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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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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A word too much always defeats its purpose.
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Not to go to the theater is like making one's toilet without a mirror.
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The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.
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There is not much to be got anywhere in the world. It is filled with misery and pain; if a man escapes these, boredeom lies in wait for him at every corner. Nay more; it is evil which generally has the upper hand, and folly that makes the most noise. Fate is cruel and mankind pitiable.
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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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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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What a person is for himself, what abides with him in his loneliness and isolation, and what no one can give or take away from him, this is obviously more essential for him than everything that he possesses or what he may be in the eyes of others.
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Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.
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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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I love looking at famous people. Because of the way they look. Because of the way photography makes them look famous.
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The bad thing about all religions is that, instead of being able to confess their allegorical nature, they have to conceal it.
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Every nation criticizes every other one - and they are all correct.