"If there is anything in the world..." - Quote by Arthur Schopenhauer
If there is anything in the world that can really be called a man's property, it is surely that which is the result of his mental activity.
More by Arthur Schopenhauer
“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.”
“Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.”
“(Politeness is) a tacit agreement that people's miserable defects, whether moral or intellectual, shall on either side be ignored and not be made the subject of reproach.”
More on Ownership
“Some men are born to own, and can animate all their possessions. Others cannot: their owning is not graceful; seems to be a compromise of their character: they seem to steal their own dividends.”
“If I like it, I say it's mine. If I don't I say it's a fake.”
“When the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him... a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
More on Mind
“Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it cannot function and remain in control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless Now as threatening. Time and mind are in fact inseparable.”
“Every action has an ancestor of a thought.”
“The only way to study the mind is to get at facts, and then intellect will arrange them and deduce the principles.”