Arthur Schopenhauer quotes - page 3

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. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
Intellect is invisible to the man who has none.
Arthur Schopenhauer
There is only one inborn error. and that is the notion that we exist in order to be happy.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Dissimulation is innate in woman, and almost as much a quality of the stupid as of the clever.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Life is short and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.
Arthur Schopenhauer
There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life.
Arthur Schopenhauer
In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.
Arthur Schopenhauer
A man who has no mental needs, because his intellect is of the narrow and normal amount, is, in the strict sense of the word, what is called a philistine.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
To find out your real opinion of someone, judge the impression you have when you first see a letter from them.
Arthur Schopenhauer
There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Music is the melody whose text is the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Newspapers are the second hand of history.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head.
Arthur Schopenhauer
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.
Arthur Schopenhauer
To marry is to halve your rights and double your duties.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.
Arthur Schopenhauer
That the outer man is a picture of the inner, and the face an expression and revelation of the whole character, is a presumption likely enough in itself, and therefore a safe one to go on borne out as it is by the fact that people are always anxious to see anyone who has made himself famous. Photography offers the most complete satisfaction of our curiosity. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
Ordinary people merely think how they shall spend their time a man of talent tries to use it.
Arthur Schopenhauer
All religions promise a reward beyond life, in eternity, for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding.
Arthur Schopenhauer
A man of intellect is like an artist who gives a concert without any help from anyone else, playing on a single instrument--a piano, say, which is a little orchestra in itself. Such a man is a little world in himself; and the effect produced by various instruments together, he produces single-handed, in the unity of his own consciousness. Like the piano, he has no place in a symphony; he is a soloist and performs by himself--in soli tude, it may be; or if in the company with other instruments, only as principal; or for setting the tone, as in singing.
Arthur Schopenhauer
There is only one inborn erroneous notion ... that we exist in order to be happy ... So long as we persist in this inborn error ... the world seems to us full of contradictions. For at every step, in great things and small, we are bound to experience that the world and life are certainly not arranged for the purpose of maintaining a happy existence ... hence the countenances of almost all elderly persons wear the expression of ... disappointment.
Arthur Schopenhauer