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| Arthur Schopenhauer
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone.A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants. A man must have grown old and lived long in order to see how short life is. A man's delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes.A man's face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man's thoughts and aspirations. A sense of humor is the only divine quality of man. A word too much always defeats its purpose. After your death you will be what you were before your birth. All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people. Any book, which is at all important, should be reread immediately.Anybody can sympathize with another's sorrow, but to
sympathize with another's joy is the attribute of an
angel.As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.Authors may be divided into falling stars, planets, and fixed stars: the first have a momentary effect; the second have a much longer duration; but the third are unchangeable, possess their own light, and work for all time.Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another's money. Idiots!Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can't expect an angel to look out. Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other. Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents. Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal. Compassion is the basis of all morality. Do not shorten the morning by getting up late; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred.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.
-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. Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right. Every parting gives a foretaste of death; every coming together again a foretaste of the resurrection.Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour. Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self evident.Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world.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.Fame is something that must be won. Honor is something that must not be lost.Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune.Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude. Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.He who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom.Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost. 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.Human life must be some form of mistake. I owe what is best in my own development to the impression made by Kant's works, the sacred writings of the Hindus, and Plato.I've never know any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage. 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.If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it. If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him. Ignorance is degrading only when found in company with great riches. In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head. In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one's rights and double one's duties.In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods. In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. They are destined sooner or later to become the faith of the people. Intellect is invisible to the man who has none. It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain. It is a source of consolation to look back upon those great misfortunes which never happened. It is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do. It is in the treatment of trifles that a person shows what they are.It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us.It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character. It's the niceties that make the difference; fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards. Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.Just as the largest library, badly arranged, is not so useful as a very moderate one that is well arranged, so the greatest amount of knowledge, if not elaborated by our own thoughts, is worth much less than a far smaller volume that has been abundantly and repeatedly thought over.Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed.Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.Man is never happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which he thinks will make him so. Many learned persons have read themselves stupid. Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability. Money alone is absolutely good, because it is not only a concrete satisfaction of one need in particular; it is an abstract satisfaction of all. Money is human happiness in the abstract; he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money. Music is the answer to the mystery of life. It is the most profound of all the arts; it expresses the deepest thoughts of life and being; a simple language which nonetheless cannot be translated. Music is the melody whose text is the world.National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities. Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point. No one can transcend their own individuality.Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but is also a disruption of thought. Not to go to the theater is like making one's toilet without a mirror.Nothing is to be had for gold but mediocrity. Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.Only a male intellect clouded by the sexual drive could call the stunted, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged sex the fair sex. Ordinary people merely think how they shall "spend" their time; a man of talent tries to "use" it. Our first ideas of life are generally taken from fiction rather than fact.Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.People of Wealth and the so called upper class suffer the most from boredom. Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax. Rascals are always sociable -- more's the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others company.Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own. Reasonable and vicious are quite consistent with each other, in fact, only through their union are great and far-reaching crimes possible.Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think. Rudeness is better than any argument; it totally eclipses intellect.Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life. 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. Style is nothing but the mere silhouette of thought; and
an obscure or bad style means a dull or confused brain.Style is what gives value and currency to thoughts.Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment -- a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man's existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer.Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see. That I could clamber to the frozen moon and draw the ladder after me. 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.The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value. The cause of laughter is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real project. The chief objection I have to pantheism is that it says nothing. To call the world God is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym for the word world.The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped. The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arise from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost.The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time. The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively not by the false appearance of things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice. The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity. The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it. The first rule, indeed by itself virtually a sufficient condition for good style, is to have something to say.The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable. The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness. The highest, most varied and lasting pleasures are those of the mind.The life of every individual is really always a tragedy but gone through in detail, it has the character of a comedy. The little honesty existing among authors is to be seen in the outrageous way in which they misquote from the writings of others. The longer a man's fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming.The majority of men ... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and ... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority. The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for. The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him. The mother of useful arts is necessity; that of the fine arts is luxury. For father the former has intellect; the latter genius, which itself is a kind of luxury.The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.The present is the only reality and the only certainty.The progress of life shows a man the stuff of which he is made.The reader who, instead of being keen to learn, is intent only on finding fault, will simply not learn anything. He likes to criticize.The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom. The ultimate foundation of honor is the conviction that moral character is unalterable: a single bad action implies that future actions of the same kind will, under similar circumstances, also be bad. The Upanishads has been the solace of my life – it will be the solace of my death. The weakness of their reasoning faculty also explains why women show more sympathy for the unfortunate than men; ... and why, on the contrary, they are inferior to men as regards justice, and less honorable and conscientious. The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority, have always done just the opposite. The word of man is the most durable of all material. The years pass more quickly as we become older. 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. There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome --to be got over.There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life. There is something in us wiser than our head. 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.Thoughts die the moment they are embodied by words. Time is that in which all things pass away.To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.To desire immortality is to desire the eternal perpetuation of a great mistake.To find out your real opinion of someone, judge the impression you have when you first see a letter from them.To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away. To live alone is the fate of all great souls.To marry is to halve your rights and double your duties. Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first. Truth will first be ridiculed, then violently opposed, and finally accepted as self-evident. Vengeance taken will often tear the heart and torment the conscience.We deceive and flatter no one by such delicate artificies as we do our own selves.
[Ger., Wir betrugen und schmeicheln niemanden durch so feine Kunstgriffe als uns selbst.]We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame. What makes men hard-hearted is that everyone has sufficient troubles of his own to bear, or thinks he has. What, on the hand, makes them so inquisitive is the polar opposite of suffering – boredom. What makes people hard-hearted is this, that each man has or, fancies he has, as much as he can bear in his own troubles.Whatever the heart resists, the head does not let in. Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes. Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity. Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see. With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy. 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. |
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