Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes

It is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do

Memory works like the collection glass in the Camera obscura: it gathers everything together and therewith produces a far more beautiful picture than was present originally.

It takes place, by and large, with the same sort of necessity as a tree brings forth fruit, and demands of the world no more than a soil on which the individual can flourish.

To use many words to communicate few thoughts is everywhere the unmistakable sign of mediocrity. To gather much thought into few words stamps the man of genius.

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.

I know of no more beautiful prayer than that which the Hindus of old used in closing: May all that have life be delivered from suffering.

Vedas are the most rewarding and the most elevating book which can be possible in the world.

Sexual passion is the cause of war and the end of peace, the basis of what is serious... and consequently the concentration of all desire

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.

Many undoubtedly owe their good fortune to the circumstance that they possess a pleasing smile with which they win hearts. Yet these hearts would do better to beware and to learn from Hamlet's tables that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.

We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.

Vengeance taken will often tear the heart and torment the conscience.

We seldom speak of what we have but often of what we lack.

A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner; nor with his fate if the corner granted him allows of his following his vocation without having to think about other people.

The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.

Everything that happens, happens of necessity.

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.

That arithmetic is the basest of all mental activities is proved by the fact that it is the only one that can be accomplished by a machine.

A man of talent will strive for money and reputation; but the spring that moves genius to the production of its works is not as easy to name

There is not much to be got anywhere in the world. It is filled with misery and pain; if a man escapes these, boredeom lies in wait for him at every corner. Nay more; it is evil which generally has the upper hand, and folly that makes the most noise. Fate is cruel and mankind pitiable.

He who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom.

A man's face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man's thoughts and aspirations.

As a general rule, the longer a man's fame is likely to last, the later it will be in coming; for all excellent products require time for their development.

Every truth passes through 3 stages before it is recognized 1)ridicule 2) opposition 3) accepted as self-evident.

Whatever torch we kindle, and whatever space it may illuminate, our horizon will always remain encircled by the depth of night.

The young should early be trained to bear being left alone; for it is a source of happiness and peace of mind.

Always to see the general in the particular is the very foundation of genius.

When you look back on your life, it looks as though it were a plot, but when you are into it, it's a mess: just one surprise after another. Then, later, you see it was perfect.

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

The problem with Germans is that they look in the clouds for what lies at their feet.

Our civilized world is nothing but a great masquerade. You encounter knights, parsons, soldiers, doctors, lawyers, priests, philosophers and a thousand more: but they are not what they appear - they are merely masks... Usually, as I say, there is nothing but industrialists, businessmen and speculators concealed behind all these masks.

Faith is like love, it cannot be forced. Therefore it is a dangerous operation if an attempt be made to introduce or bind it by state regulations; for, as the attempt to force love begets hatred, so also to compel religious belief produces rank unbelief.

To forgive and forget means to throw away dearly bought experience.

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.

A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.

Motives are causes experienced from within.

I've never known any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage.

Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law.

The man who sees two or three generations is like one who sits in the conjuror's booth at a fair, and sees the same tricks two or three times. They are meant to be seen only once.

A man who has not enough originality to think out a new title for his book will be much less capable of giving it new contents.

Ist es an und fu? r sich absurd, das Nichtsein fu? r einUbel zu ? halten; da jedes Ubel wie jedes Gut das Dasein zur Voraussetzung hat, ja sogar das Bewusstsein. It is in and by itself absurd to regard non-existence as an evil; for every evil, like every good, presupposes existence, indeed even consciousness.

Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.

In the blessings as well as in the ills of life, less depends upon what befalls us than upon the way in which it is met.

Life without pain has no meaning.

If I maintain my silence about my secret it is my prisoner...if I let it slip from my tongue, I am ITS prisoner.

Something of great importance now past is inferior to something of little importance now present, in that the latter is a reality, and related to the former as something to nothing.

The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.

the brut first knows death when it dies, but man draws consciously nearer to it every hour that he lives; and this makes his life at times a questionable good even to him who has not recognised this character of constant anaihilation in the whole of life.