Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes
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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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Every hero is a Samson. The strong man succumbs to the intrigues of the weak and the many; and if in the end he loses all patience he crushes both them and himself.
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A man must have grown old and lived long in order to see how short life is.
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...nothing at all rides on the life or death of the individual.
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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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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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There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.
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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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Were an Asiatic to ask me for a definition of Europe, I should be forced to answer him: It is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing, and that his present birth is his first entrance into life
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Astrology furnishes a splendid proof of the contemptible subjectivity of men in consequence whereof they refer everything to themselves and from every idea at once go straight back to themselves. Astrology refers the course of celestial bodies to the miserable ego; it also establishes a connection between the comets in heaven and the squabbles and rascalities on earth.
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The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.
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There is not a grain of dust, not an atom that can become nothing, yet man believes that death is the annhilation of his being.
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Because Christian morality leaves animals out of account, they are at once outlawed in philosophical morals; they are mere 'things,' mere means to any ends whatsoever. They can therefore be used for vivisection, hunting, coursing, bullfights, and horse racing, and can be whipped to death as they struggle along with heavy carts of stone. Shame on such a morality that is worthy of pariahs, and that fails to recognize the eternal essence that exists in every living thing, and shines forth with inscrutable significance from all eyes that see the sun!
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We grope about in the labyrinth of our life and in the obscurity of our investigations; bright moments illuminate our path like flashes of lightning.
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The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.
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Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.
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Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.
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Meistens belehrt uns erst der Verlust über den Wert der Dinge.
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There is only one inborn erroneous notion ... that we exist in order to be happy ... So long as we persist in this inborn error ... the world seems to us full of contradictions. For at every step, in great things and small, we are bound to experience that the world and life are certainly not arranged for the purpose of maintaining a happy existence ... hence the countenances of almost all elderly persons wear the expression of ... disappointment.
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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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Life is a language in which certain truths are conveyed to us; if we could learn them in some other way, we should not live.
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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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Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are its tormented souls.
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Man is never happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which he thinks will make him so.