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The best consolation in misfortune or affliction of any kind will be the thought of other people who are in a still worse plight than yourself; and this is a form of consolation open to every one. But what an awful fate this means for mankind as a whole! We are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher, who chooses out first one and then another for his prey.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
We deceive and flatter no one by such delicate artificies as we do our own selves.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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When a man has reached a condition in which he believes that a thing must happen because he does not wish it, and that what he wishes to happen never will be, this is really the state called desperation.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
The conviction that the world and man is something that had better not have been, is of a kind to fill us with indulgence towards one another.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
One can forget everything, everything, only not oneself, one's own being.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
Reading is a mere makeshift for original thinking.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. For politeness is like a counter--an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
Das Bedenkliche bei der Sache ist auch bloß die doch einzuräumende Möglichkeit, daß die letzte dem Menschen erreichbare Einsicht in die Natur der Dinge, in sein eigenes Wesen und das der Welt nicht gerade zusammenträfe mit den Lehren, welche theils dem ehemaligen Völkchen der Juden eröffnet worden, theils vor 1800 Jahren in Jerusalem aufgetreten sind.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
Ball, Theater, Gesellschaft, Kartenspiel, Hasardspiel, Pferde, Weiber, Trinken, Reisen, … reicht dies Alles gegen die Langeweile nicht aus, wo Mangel an geistigen Bedürfnissen die geistigen Genüsse unmöglich macht. Daher auch ist dem Philister ein dumpfer, trockener Ernst, der sich dem thierischen nähert, eigen und charakteristisch.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
We will gradually become indifferent to what goes on in the minds of other people when we acquire a knowledge of the superficial nature of their thoughts, the narrowness of their views and of the number of their errors. Whoever attaches a lot of value to the opinions of others pays them too much honor.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
A man’s body and the needs of his body are now everywhere treated with a tender indulgence. Is the thinking mind then, to be the only thing that is never to obtain the slightest measure of consideration or protection, to say nothing of respect?
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
Philosophy … is a science, and as such has no articles of faith; accordingly, in it nothing can be assumed as existing except what is either positively given empirically, or demonstrated through indubitable conclusions.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
If people insist that honor is dearer than life itself, what they really mean is that existence and well-being are as nothing compared with other people's opinions. Of course, this may be only an exaggerated way of stating the prosaic truth that reputation, that is, the opinion others have of us, is indispensable if we are to make any progress in the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
What give all that is tragic, whatever its form, the characteristic of the sublime, is the first inkling of the knowledge that the world and life can give no satisfaction, and are not worth our investment in them. The tragic spirit consists in this. Accordingly it leads to resignation.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
Politeness is a tacit agreement that people's miserable defects, whether moral or intellectual, shall on either side be ignored and not be made the subject of reproach.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Rudeness is better than any argument; it totally eclipses intellect.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
We see in tragedy the noblest men, after a long conflict and suffering, finally renounce forever all the pleasure of life and the aims till then pursued so keenly, or cheerfully and willingly give up life itself.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
Human life, like all inferior goods, is covered on the outside with a false glitter; what suffers always conceals itself.
Arthur Schopenhauer -
The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.
Arthur Schopenhauer