Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes (155 Quotes)


    The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.

    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

    Only a male intellect clouded by the sexual drive could call the stunted, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged sex the fair sex.

    Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.

    Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.



    Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

    Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.



    The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.

    Dissimulation is innate in woman, and almost as much a quality of the stupid as of the clever.

    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.


    There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life.

    First it is ridiculed,Second it is violently opposed,-finally it is accepted as self evident

    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.

    Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.



    What a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has.... . What a man is in himself, what accompanies him when he is alone, what no one can give him or take away, is obviously more essential to him than everything he has in the way of possessions, or even what he may be in the eyes of the world.

    The greatest achievements of the human mind are generally received with distrust.

    Fame is something that must be won. Honor is something that must not be lost.




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

    It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us.

    We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.

    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.


    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.

    Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.

    Of all the intellectual faculties, judgment is the last to mature. A child under the age of fifteen should confine its attention either to subjects like mathematics, in which errors of judgment are impossible, or to subjects in which they are not very dangerous, like languages, natural science, history, etc.

    Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

    Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.


    It's the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards.

    Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.

    The memory should be specially taxed in youth, since it is then that it is strongest and most tenacious. But in choosing the things that should be committed to memory the utmost care and forethought must be exercised as lessons well learnt in youth are never forgotten.

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



    Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own.

    When a man has reached a condition in which he believes that a thing must happen because he does not wish it, and that what he wishes to happen never will be, this is really the state called desperation.

    Necessity is the constant scourge of the lower classes, ennui of the higher ones.

    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.

    The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.

    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.

    The more a man finds his sources of pleasure in himself, the happier he will be.... The highest, most varied and lasting pleasures are those of the mind.


    Related Authors


    George Santayana - David Hume - Albert Camus - Theodor Adorno - Protagoras - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - John Dewey - Guru Nanak - Democritus - Baron de Montesquieu


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