Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes
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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.
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Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed.
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The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.
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My body and my will are one.
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A man's delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes.
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To be shocked at how deeply rejection hurts is to ignore what acceptance involves. We must never allow our suffering to be compounded by suggestions that there is something odd in suffering so deeply. There would be something amiss if we didn't.
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Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.
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If you feel irritated by the absurd remarks of two people whose conversation you happen to overhear, you should imagine that you are listening to a dialogue of two fools in a comedy.
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Any foolish boy can stamp on a beetle, but all the professors in the world cannot make a beetle.
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All religions promise a reward for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding.
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For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.
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Life is a business that does not cover the costs.
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We may divide thinkers into those who think for themselves and those who think through others. The latter are the rule and the former the exception. The first are original thinkers in a double sense, and egotists in the noblest meaning of the word.
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The moralists of Europe have pretended that beasts have no rights... a doctrine revolting/gross/barbarous... on which a native of the Asiatic uplands could not look without righteous horror.
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The word of man is the most durable of all material.
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The little honesty that exists among authors is discernible in the unconscionable way they misquote from the writings of others.
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It is difficult, if not impossible, to define the limit of our reasonable desires in respect of possessions.
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Before you take anything away, you must have something better to put in its place.
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It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.
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The problem with Germans is that they look in the clouds for what lies at their feet.
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The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence.
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...in der ganzen Natur, mit dem Grad der Intelligenz die Fähigkeit zum Schmerze sich steigert, also ebenfalls erst hier ihre höchste Stufe erreicht.
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At the age of five years to enter a spinning-cotton or other factory, and from that time forth to sit there daily, first ten, then twelve, and ultimately fourteen hours, performing the same mechanical labour, is to purchase dearly the satisfaction of drawing breath. But this is the fate of millions, and that of millions more is analogous to it.
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Time is that in which all things pass away.