Arthur Schopenhauer quotes - page 14

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. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
the world is my idea. View quote
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. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
There is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the world as a kind of Hell, and in confining one's efforts to securing a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
For where did Dante get the material for his Hell, if not from this actual world of ours? View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
On the other hand, the cheapest form of pride is national pride; for the man affected therewith betrays a want of individual qualities of which he might be proud, since he would not otherwise resort to that which he shares with so many millions. The man who possesses outstanding personal qualities will rather see most clearly the faults of his own nation, for he has them constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool, who has nothing in the world whereof he could be proud, resorts finally to being proud of the very nation to which he belongs. In this he finds compensation and is now ready and thankful to defend, ... all the faults and follies peculiar to it. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
A book can never be anything more than the impression of its author's thoughts. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
Boundless compassion for all living beings is the surest and most certain guarantee of pure moral conduct, and needs no casuistry. Whoever is filled with it will assuredly injure no one, do harm to no one, encroach on no man's rights; he will rather have regard for every one, forgive every one, help every one as far as he can, and all his actions will bear the stamp of justice and loving-kindness. ... In former times the English plays used to finish with a petition for the King. The old Indian dramas close with these words: "May all living beings be delivered from pain." View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
The longer a man's fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
To live alone is the fate of all great souls. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
The poet presents the imagination with images from life and human characters and situations, sets them all in motion and leaves it to the beholder to let these images take his thoughts as far as his mental powers will permit. This is why he is able to engage men of the most differing capabilities, indeed fools and sages together. The philosopher, on the other hand, presents not life itself but the finished thoughts which he has abstracted from it and then demands that the reader should think precisely as, and precisely as far as, he himself thinks. That is why his public is so small. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to dramatic art, for the object of journalism is to make events go as far as possible. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
Genius is its own reward for the best that one is, one must necessarily be for oneself.... Further, genius consists in the working of the free intellect., and as a consequence the productions of genius serve no useful purpose. The work of genius may be music, philosophy, painting, or poetry it is nothing for use or profit. To be useless and unprofitable is one of the characteristics of genius it is their patent of nobility. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
Shame on such a morality that is worthy of pariahs, and that fails to recognize the eternal essence that exists in every living thing, and shines forth with inscrutable significance from all eyes that see the sun. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
If a man sets out to hate all the miserable creatures he meets, he will not have much energy left for anything else whereas he can despise them, one and all, with the greatest ease. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
Life is a language in which certain truths are conveyed to us if we could learn them in some other way, we should not live. View quote
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. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
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. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
Do not shorten the morning by getting up late look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
Not to go to the theater is like making one's toilet without a mirror. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
When the Church says that, in the dogmas of religion, reason is totally incompetent and blind, and its use to be reprehended, this really attests the fact that these dogmas are allegorical in their nature, and are not to be judged by the standard which reason, taking all things sensu proprio, can alone apply. Now the absurdities of a dogma are just the mark and sign of what is allegorical and mythical in it. In the case under consideration, however, the absurdities spring from the fact that two such heterogeneous doctrines as those of the Old and New Testaments had to be combined. The great allegory was of gradual growth. Suggested by external and adventitious circumstances, it was developed by the interpretation put upon them, an interpretation in quiet touch with certain deep-lying truths only half realised. The allegory was finally completed by Augustine, who penetrated deepest into its meaning, and so was able to conceive it as a systematic whole and supply its defects. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
Reason is feminine in nature; it can only give after it has received. Of itself it has nothing but the empty forms of its operation. There is no absolutely pure rational knowledge except the four principles to which I have attributed metalogical truth; the principles of identity, contradiction, excluded middle, and sufficient reason of knowledge. For even the rest of logic is not absolutely pure rational knowledge. It presupposes the relations and the combinations of the spheres of concepts. But concepts in general only exist after experience of ideas of perception, and as their whole nature consists in their relation to these, it is clear that they presuppose them. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
Boundless compassion for all living beings is the surest and most certain guarantee of pure moral conduct, and needs no casuistry. Whoever is filled with it will assuredly injure no one, do harm to no one, encroach on no man's rights; he will rather have regard for every one, forgive every one, help every one as far as he can, and all his actions will bear the stamp of justice and loving-kindness. ... In former times the English plays used to finish with a petition for the King. The old Indian dramas close with these words: "May all living beings be delivered from pain." Tastes differ; but in my opinion there is no more beautiful prayer than this. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
Here the institution that compels is the state, the only purpose of which is to protect individuals from one another and the whole from external enemies. Some German philosophasters of this mercenary age would like to twist it into an institution for education and edification in morality; in the background of this lurks the Jesuitical purpose of eliminating personal freedom and the individual's personal development in order to make him into a mere cog in a Chinese machine of state and religion. But this is the path by which in the past one has arrived at the inquisitions, burning of heretics, and religious wars; Frederick the Great's pledge, ‘In my country, each shall be able to tend to his salvation in his own fashion', indicated that he never wanted to tread that path. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
On the other hand, the cheapest form of pride is national pride; for the man affected therewith betrays a want of individual qualities of which he might be proud, since he would not otherwise resort to that which he shares with so many millions. The man who possesses outstanding personal qualities will rather see most clearly the faults of his own nation, for he has them constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool, who has nothing in the world whereof he could be proud, resorts finally to being proud of the very nation to which he belongs. In this he finds compensation and is now ready and thankful to defend, ... all the faults and follies peculiar to it. (From 'Parerga and Paralipomena', Vol. 1, Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life, 'What A Man Represents', pp. 360) View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer