Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes

“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.”

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

“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.”

“It is only the hope of what is claimed that begets and nurishes the wish.”

“However, for the man who studies to gain insight, books and studies are merely rungs of the ladder on which he climbs to the summit of knowledge. As soon as a rung has raised him up one step, he leaves it behind. On the other hand, the many who study in order to fill their memory do not use the rungs of the ladder for climbing, but take them off and load themselves with them to take away, rejoicing at the increasing weight of the burden. They remain below forever, because they bear what should have bourne them.”

“To form a judgment intuitively is the privilege of few; authority and example lead the rest of the world. They see with the eyes of others, they hear with the ears of others. Therefore it is very easy to think as all the world now think; but to think as all the world will think thirty years hence is not in the power of every one.”

“Everybody's friend is nobody's.”

“The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and slower it is in arriving at maturity. A man reaches the maturity of his reasoning powers and mental faculties hardly before the age of twenty-eight; a woman at eighteen.”

“The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.”

“Truth is no harlot who throws her arms round the neck of him who does not desire her; on the contrary, she is so coy a beauty that even the man who sacrifices everything to her can still not be certain of her favors.”

“It is not what things are objectively and in themselves, but what they are for us, in our way of looking at them, that makes us happy or the reverse.”

“The man who goes up in a balloon does not feel as if he were ascending; he only sees the earth sinking deeper below him.”

“No greater mistake can be made than to imagine that what has been written latest is always the more correct; that what is written later on is an improvement on what was written previously; and that every change means progress.”

“Reasonable and vicious are quite consistent with each other, in fact, only through their union are great and far-reaching crimes possible”

“I am often surprised by the cleverness, and now and again by the stupidity, of my dog; and I have similar experiences with mankind.”

“I have not yet spoken my last word about women. I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself from above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more than a man.”

“As my own father was sick, and miserably tied to his invalid's chair, he would have been abandoned had not an old servant performed for him a so-called service of love. My mother gave parties while he was perishing in solitude, and amused herself while he was suffering bitter agonies”

“True brevity of expression consists in a man only saying what is worth saying, while avoiding all diffuse explanations of things which every one can think out for himself.”

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

“The faculty for remembering is not diminished in proportion to what one has learnt, just as little as the number of moulds in which you cast sand lessens its capacity for being cast in new moulds.”

“Whatever folly men commit, be their shortcomings or their vices what they may, let us exercise forbearance; remember that when these faults appear in others it is our follies and vices that we behold.”

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

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

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

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