Authors — Quotes

Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes: 36

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.
They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.
Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first.
Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.
Compassion is the basis of morality.
All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; Third, it is accepted as self-evident.
Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.
Parerga and Paralipomena
Happiness consists in frequent repetition of pleasure
We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.
They tell us that Suicide is the greatest piece of Cowardice... That Suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in this world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.
The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.
Religion: A Dialogue and Other Essays
One should use common words to say uncommon things
We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.
A sense of humour is the only divine quality of man
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.
Parerga and Paralipomena
Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude
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?
Studies in Pessimism: The Essays
We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.
Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them; but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.
Counsels and Maxims (The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer)
Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people. There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness.
The life of every individual, viewed as a whole and in general, and when only its most significant features are emphasized, is really a tragedy; but gone through in detail it has the character of a comedy.
The World as Will and Representation, Vol 1
Faith is like love: it does not let itself be forced.
How very paltry and limited the normal human intellect is, and how little lucidity there is in the human consciousness, may be judged from the fact that, despite the ephemeral brevity of human life, the uncertainty of our existence and the countless enigmas which press upon us from all sides, everyone does not continually and ceaselessly philosophize, but that only the rarest of exceptions do.
Ordinary people merely think how they shall 'spend' their time; a man of talent tries to 'use' it.
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 Art of Literature
After your death, you will be what you were before your birth.
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.
On the Suffering of the World
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.
The Wisdom of Life
Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.
The Wisdom of Life
Writers may be classified as meteors, planets, and fixed stars. They belong not to one system, one nation only, but to the universe. And just because they are so very far away, it is usually many years before their light is visible to the inhabitants of this earth.
Essays and Aphorisms
The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.
The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims
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
Qualsiasi uomo notevole, chiunque cioè non appartenga a quei 5/6 dell'umanità dotati tanto miseramente dalla natura, rimarrà dopo i quarant'anni difficilmente esente da una certa traccia di misantropia.
Compassion is the basis of all morality
It is easy to understand that in the dreary middle ages the Aristotelian logic would be very acceptable to the controversial spirit of the schoolmen, which, in the absence of all real knowledge, spent its energy upon mere formulas and words, and that it would be eagerly adopted even in its mutilated Arabian form, and presently established as the centre of all knowledge.
The World as Will and Representation, Vol 1