Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes
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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.
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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.
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Apart from man, no being wonders at its own experience.
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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.
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The method of viewing things which proceeds in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason is the rational method, and it alone is valid and of use in practical life and in science. The method which looks away from the content of this principle is the method of genius, which is only valid and of use in art.
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Men of learning are those who have read the contents of books. Thinkers, geniuses, and those who have enlightened the world and furthered the race of men, are those who have made direct use of the book of the world.
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Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination.
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If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him.
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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?
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Every time a man is begotten and born, the clock of human life is wound up anew to repeat once more its same old tune that has already been played innumerable times, movement by movement and measure by measure, with insignificant variations.
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Rascals are always sociable - more’s the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others’ company.
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One can forget everything, everything, only not oneself, one's own being.
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Reason is feminine in nature; it can only give after it has received.
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Every parting gives a foretaste of death; every coming together again a foretaste of the resurrection.
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Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.
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Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
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Marrying means, to grasp blindfolded into a sack hoping to find out an eel out of an assembly of snakes.
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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.
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There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life.
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The less one, as a result of objective or subjective conditions, has to come into contact with people, the better off one is for it.
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We deceive and flatter no one by such delicate artificies as we do our own selves.
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If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited.
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A man finds himself, to his great astonishment, suddenly existing, after thousands and thousands of years of non-existence: he lives for a little while; and then, again, comes an equally long period when he must exist no more. The heart rebels against this, and feels that it cannot be true.
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Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.