Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes
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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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All satisfaction, or what iscommonlycalled happiness, is really and essentially always negative only, and never positive.
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Alles, alles kann einer vergessen, nur nicht sich selbst, sein eigenes Wesen.
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The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.
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Only a male intellect clouded by the sexual drive could call the stunted, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged sex the fair sex.
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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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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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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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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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What now on the other hand makes people sociable is their incapacity to endure solitude and thus themselves.
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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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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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Each day is a little life.
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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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There is no vice of which a man can be guilty, no meanness, no shabbiness, no unkindness, which excites so much indignation among his contemporaries, friends and neighbours, as his success. This is the one unpardonable crime, which reason cannot defend, nor humility mitigate.
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Malebranche teaches that we see all things in God himself. This is certainly equivalent to explaining something unknown by something even more unknown. Moreover, according to him, we see not only all things in God, but God is also the sole activity therein, so that physical causes are so only apparently; they are merely occasional causes. And so here we have essentially the pantheism of Spinoza who appears to have learned more from Malebranche than from Descartes.
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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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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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...nothing at all rides on the life or death of the individual.
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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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Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.
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In their hearts women think that it is men's business to earn money and theirs to spend it.
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A man can surely do what he wills to do, but cannot determine what he wills.
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I believe a person of any fine feeling scarcely ever sees a new face without a sensation akin to a shock, for the reason that it presents a new and surprising combination of unedifying elements.