Arthur schopenhauer quotes

People of Wealth and the so called upper class suffer the most from boredom.

Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else.

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

What people commonly call Fate is, as a general rule, nothing but their own stupid and foolish conduct.

The highest, most varied and lasting pleasures are those of the mind.

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.

That human life must be some kind of mistake is sufficiently proved by the simple observation that man is a compound of needs which are hard to satisfy; that their satisfaction achieves nothing but a painless condition in which he is only given over to boredom . . .

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.

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.

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

Man is never happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which he thinks will make him so.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

The fruits of Christianity were religious wars, butcheries, crusades, inquisitions, extermination of the natives of America, and the introduction of African slaves in their place.

If anyone spends almost the whole day in reading...he gradually loses the capacity for thinking...This is the case with many learned persons; they have read themselves stupid

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

There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.

To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence.

Human existence is an error...it is bad today and every day it gets worse, until the worst happens.

The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

There is only one inborn error. and that is the notion that we exist in order to be happy.

What people commonly call fate is mostly their own stupidity.

The real meaning of persona is a mask, such as actors were accustomed to wear on the ancient stage; and it is quite true that no one shows himself as he is, but wears his mask and plays his part. Indeed, the whole of our social arrangements may be likened to a perpetual comedy; and this is why a man who is worth anything finds society so insipid, while a blockhead is quite at home in it.

The shortness of life, so often lamented, may be the best thing about it.

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.

Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.

It would be better if there were nothing. Since there is more pain than pleasure on earth, every satisfaction is only transitory, creating new desires and new distresses, and the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer

A man must have grown old and lived long in order to see how short life is.

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.

Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

There is in the world only the choice between loneliness and vulgarity. All young people should be taught now to put up with loneliness ... because the less man is compelled to come into contact with others, the better off he is.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

Men are a thousand times more intent on becoming rich than on acquiring culture, though it is quite certain that what a man IS contributes more to his happiness than what he HAS.

Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.

Patriotism is the passion of fools and the most foolish of passions.

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own.

Honour is external conscience, and conscience is inward honour.

Women remain children all their lives, for they always see only what is near at hand, cling to the present, take the appearance of a thing for reality, and prefer trifling matters to the most important.

If we suspect that a man is lying, we should pretend to believe him; for then he becomes bold and assured, lies more vigorously, and is unmasked.

Everybody's friend is nobody's.

A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial.

A happy life is impos­si­ble; the best that a man can attain is a heroic life.

Do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred. Evening is like old age: we are languid, talkative, silly. Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

If God made the world, I would not be that God, for the misery of the world would break my heart.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.

Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.

Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.

The Universe is a dream dreamed by a single dreamer where all the dream characters dream too.

Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, "Lighthouses" as the poet said "erected in the sea of time." They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind, Books are humanity in print.

We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.

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.

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.

The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.

Our life is a loan received from death with sleep as the daily interest on this loan.

Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.

There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life.

Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.

Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are its tormented souls.

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.

Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head.

Console yourself by remembering that the world doesn't deserve your affection.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

The tallest oak tree once was an acorn that any pig could have swallowed.

You are free to do what you want, but you are not free to want what you want.

Life without pain has no meaning.

The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.

Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed.

With health, everything is a source of pleasure; without it, nothing else, whatever it may be, is enjoyable...Healt h is by far the most important element in human happiness.

The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.

Pantheism is only a polite form of atheism.

The reason domestic pets are so lovable and so helpful to us is because they enjoy, quietly and placidly, the present moment.

Marrying means, to grasp blindfolded into a sack hoping to find out an eel out of an assembly of snakes.

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

He who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom.

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

After your death you will be what you were before your birth.

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.

Optimism is not only a false but also a pernicious doctrine, for it presents life as a desirable state and man's happiness as its aim and object. Starting from this, everyone then believes he has the most legitimate claim to happiness and enjoyment. If, as usually happens, these do not fall to his lot, he believes that he suffers an injustice, in fact that he misses the whole point of his existence.

Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.

There is something in us that is wiser than our head.

A sense of humour is the only divine quality of man

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

No rose without a thorn but many a thorn without a rose.

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

I have long held the opinion that the amount of noise that anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity and therefore be regarded as a pretty fair measure of it.

Restlessness is the hallmark of existence.

We seldom think of what we have but always of what we lack. Therefore, rather than grateful, we are bitter.

Man may have the most excellent judgment in all other matters, and yet go wrong in those which concern himself; because here the will comes in and deranges the intellect at once. Therefore let a man take counsel of a friend. A doctor can cure everyone but himself; if he falls ill, he sends for a colleague.

This world could not have been the work of an all-loving being, but that of a devil, who had brought creatures into existence in order to delight in the sight of their sufferings.

Intellect is invisible to the man who has none.

Education perverts the mind since we are directly opposing the natural development of our mind by obtaining ideas first and observations last. This is why so few men of learning have such sound common sense as is quite common among the illiterate.

Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to chance.

Compassion is the basis of morality.

To feel envy is human, to savour schadenfreude is devilish

One should use common words to say uncommon things

The life of every individual is really always a tragedy, but gone through in detail, it has the character of a comedy.

Life is full of troubles and vexations, that one must either rise above it by means of corrected thoughts, or leave it.

A man of genius can hardly be sociable, for what dialogues could indeed be so intelligent and entertaining as his own monologues?

If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.

Life is a constant process of dying.

Hope is the confusion of the desire for a thing with its probability.

Vulgar people take huge delight in the faults and follies of great men.

The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy.

Pleasure is never as pleasant as we expected it to be and pain is always more painful. The pain in the world always outweighs the pleasure. If you don't believe it, compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is eating the other.

What a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has or how he is regarded by others.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone.

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness.

A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.

The present is the only reality and the only certainty.

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.

Scoundrels are always sociable.

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.

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.

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

The greatest wisdom is to make the enjoyment of the present the supreme object of life; because that is the only reality, all else being merely the play of thought. On the other hand, such a course might just as well be called the greatest folly: for that which in the next moment exists no more, and vanishes utterly, like a dream, can never be worth a serious effort.

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.

Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction. Deceptive images of a vague happiness hover before us in our dreams, and we search in vain for their original. Much would have been gained if, through timely advice and instruction, young people could have had eradicated from their minds the erroneous notion that the world has a great deal to offer them.

Men need some kind of external activity, because they are inactive within.