Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes

It would be a great mistake to suppose that it is sufficient not to become personal yourself. For by showing a man quite quietly that he is wrong, and that what he says and thinks is incorrect — a process which occurs in every dialectical victory — you embitter him more than if you used some rude or insulting expression. Why is this? Because, as Hobbes observes, all mental pleasure consists in being able to compare oneself with others to one’s own advantage. — Nothing is of greater moment to a man than the gratification of his vanity, and no wound is more painful than that which is inflicted on it. Hence such phrases as “Death before dishonour,” and so on.
Arthur Schopenhauer
If human nature were not base, but thoroughly honourable, we should in every debate have no other aim than the discovery of truth; we should not in the least care whether the truth proved to be in favour of the opinion which we had begun by expressing, or of the opinion of our adversary. That we should regard as a matter of no moment, or, at any rate, of very secondary consequence; but, as things are, it is the main concern. Our innate vanity, which is particularly sensitive in reference to our intellectual powers, will not suffer us to allow that our first position was wrong and our adversary’s right. The way out of this difficulty would be simply to take the trouble always to form a correct judgment. For this a man would have to think before he spoke. But, with most men, innate vanity is accompanied by loquacity and innate dishonesty. They speak before they think; and even though they may afterwards perceive that they are wrong, and that what they assert is false, they want it to seem thecontrary. The interest in truth, which may be presumed to have been their only motive when they stated the proposition alleged to be true, now gives way to the interests of vanity: and so, for the sake of vanity, what is true must seem false, and what is false must seem true.
Arthur Schopenhauer
In consequence of the inevitably scattered and fragmentary nature of our thinking, which has been mentioned, and of the mixing together of the most heterogeneous representations thus brought about and inherent even in the noblest human mind, we really possess only *half a consciousness*. With this we grope about in the labyrinth of our life and in the obscurity of our investigations; bright moments illuminate our path like flashes of lighting. But what is to be expected generally from heads of which even the wisest is every night the playground of the strangest and most senseless dreams, and has to take up its meditations again on emerging from these dreams? Obviously a consciousness subject to such great limitations is little fitted to explore and fathom the riddle of the world; and to beings of a higher order, whose intellect did not have time as its form, and whose thinking therefore had true completeness and unity, such an endeavor would necessarily appear strange and pitiable. In fact, it is a wonder that we are not completely confused by the extremely heterogeneous mixture of fragments of representations and of ideas of every kind which are constantly crossing one another in our heads, but that we are always able to find our way again, and to adapt and adjust everything. Obviously there must exist a simple thread on which everything is arranged side by side: but what is this? Memory alone is not enough, since it has essential limitations of which I shall shortly speak; moreover, it is extremely imperfect and treacherous. The *logical ego*, or even the *transcendental synthetic unity of apperception*, are expressions and explanations that will not readily serve to make the matter comprehensible; on the contrary, it will occur to many that“Your wards are deftly wrought, but drive no bolts asunder.”Kant’s proposition: “The *I think* must accompany all our representations ,” is insufficient; for the “I” is an unknown quantity, in other words, it is itself a mystery and a secret. What gives unity and sequence to consciousness, since by pervading all the representations of consciousness, it is its substratum, its permanent supporter, cannot itself be conditioned by consciousness, and therefore cannot be a representation. On the contrary, it must be the *prius* of consciousness, and the root of the tree of which consciousness is the fruit. This, I say, is the *will*; it alone is unalterable and absolutely identical, and has brought forth consciousness for its own ends. It is therefore the will that gives unity and holds all its representations and ideas together, accompanying them, as it were, like a continuous ground-bass. Without it the intellect would have no more unity of consciousness than has a mirror, in which now one thing now another presents itself in succession, or at most only as much as a convex mirror has, whose rays converge at an imaginary point behind its surface. But it is *the will* alone that is permanent and unchangeable in consciousness. It is the will that holds all ideas and representations together as means to its ends, tinges them with the colour of its character, its mood, and its interest, commands the attention, and holds the thread of motives in its hand. The influence of these motives ultimately puts into action memory and the association of ideas. Fundamentally it is the will that is spoken of whenever “I” occurs in a judgement. Therefore, the will is the true and ultimate point of unity of consciousness, and the bond of all its functions and acts. It does not, however, itself belong to the intellect, but is only its root, origin, and controller."—from_The World as Will and Representation_. Translated from the German by E. F. J. Payne in two volumes: volume II, pp. 139-140
Arthur Schopenhauer
The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.
Arthur Schopenhauer
In early youth as we contemplate our coming life we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin.
Arthur Schopenhauer
The will is the strong blind man who carries on his shoulders the lame man who can see.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.
Arthur Schopenhauer
The greatest intellectual capacities are only found in connection with a vehement and passionate will.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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.
Arthur Schopenhauer
It is in trifles and when he is off his guard that a man best shows his character.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Necessity is the constant scourge of the lower classes ennui of the higher ones.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are by their very nature highly uncertain precarious ephemeral and subject to chance.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Pride ... is the direct appreciation of oneself.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Reason deserves to be called a prophet for in showing up the consequence and effect of our actions in the present does it not tell us what the future will be?
Arthur Schopenhauer
Life to the great majority is only a constant struggle for mere existence with the certainty of losing it at last.
Arthur Schopenhauer
To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Pride is the direct appreciation of oneself.
Arthur Schopenhauer
(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.
Arthur Schopenhauer
A man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Time is that in which all things pass away.
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
Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Reason deserves to be called a prophet for in showing up the consequence and effect of our actions in the present does it not tell us what the future will be?
Arthur Schopenhauer
Life to the great majority is only a constant struggle for mere existence with the certainty of losing it at last.
Arthur Schopenhauer
To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Pride is the direct appreciation of oneself.
Arthur Schopenhauer
(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.
Arthur Schopenhauer
A man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Time is that in which all things pass away.
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
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
Do not shorten the morning by getting up late look upon it as the quintessence of life and to a certain extent sacred.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Money is human happiness in the abstract.
Arthur Schopenhauer
The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party when the masks are dropped.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Fame is something which must be won honour is something which must not be lost.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Compassion is the basis of all morality.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Hatred comes from the heart contempt from the head and neither feeling is quite within our control.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are by their very nature highly uncertain precarious ephemeral and subject to chance.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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.
Arthur Schopenhauer
I observed once to Goethe ... that when a friend is with us we do not think the same of him as when he is away. He replied "Yes! because the absent friend is yourself and he exists only in your head whereas the friend who is present has an individuality of his own and moves according to laws of his own which cannot always be in accordance with those which you form for yourself."
Arthur Schopenhauer
The happiness of any given life is to be measured not by its joys and pleasures but by the extent to which it has been free from suffering from positive evil.
Arthur Schopenhauer
The fly ought to be used as the symbol of impertinence and audacity for whilst all other animals shun man more than anything else and run away even before he comes near them the fly lights upon his very nose.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Gaiety alone as it were is the hard cash of happiness everything else is just a promissory note.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Anti-intellectualism has long been the anti-Semitism of the business man.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Any book which is at all important should be re-read immediately.
Arthur Schopenhauer
We should comport ourselves with the masterpieces of art as with exalted personages - stand quietly before them and wait till they speak to us.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Not to go to the theatre is like making one's toilet without a mirror.
Arthur Schopenhauer
What light is to the outer physical world intellect is to the inner world of consciousness. For intellect is related to the will, and thus also to the organism which is nothing other than will regarded objectively, in the approximate same way as light is to a combustible body and the oxygen in combination with which it ignites.
Arthur Schopenhauer
[I]n other words, we should live with due knowledge of the course of things in the world. For whenever a man in any way loses self-control, or is struck down by a misfortune, grows angry, or loses heart, he shows in this way that he finds things different from what he expected, and consequently that he laboured under a mistake, did not know the world and life, did not know how at every step the will of the individual is crossed and thwarted by the chance of inanimate nature, by contrary aims and intentions, even by the malice inspired in others. Therefore either he has not used his reason to arrive at a general knowledge of this characteristic of life, or he lacks the power of judgement, when he does not again recognize in the particular what he knows in general, and when he is therefore surprised by it and loses his self-control. Thus every keen pleasure is an error, an illusion, since no attained wish can permanently satisfy, and also because every possession and every happiness is only lent by chance for an indefinite time, and can therefore be demanded back in the next hour. Thus both originate from defective knowledge. Therefore the wise man always holds himself aloof from jubilation and sorrow, and no event disturbs his ἀταραξία [ataraxia]."—from_The World as Will and Representation_. Translated from the German by E. F. J. Paye in two volumes: volume I, p. 88
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
Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Boredom is certainly not an evil to be taken lightly: it will ultimately etch lines of true despair onto a face. It makes beings with as little love for each other as humans nonetheless seek each other with such intensity, and in this way becomes the source of sociability.
Arthur Schopenhauer
If at any moment Time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the miseries of boredom.
Arthur Schopenhauer
If we suspect that a man is lying, we should pretend to believe him; for then he becomes bold and assured, lies more vigorously, and is unmasked.
Arthur Schopenhauer
A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.
Arthur Schopenhauer
To feel envy is human, to savour schadenfreude is devilish.
Arthur Schopenhauer
You can do what you will: but at each given moment of your life you can will only one determined thing and by no means anything other than this one.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Spinoza says that if a stone which has been projected through the air, had consciousness, it would believe that it was moving of its own free will. I add this only, that the stone would be right. The impulse given it is for the stone what the motive is for me, and what in the case of the stone appears as cohesion, gravitation, rigidity, is in its inner nature the same as that which I recognise in myself as will, and what the stone also, if knowledge were given to it, would recognise as will.
Arthur Schopenhauer