Arthur Schopenhauer famous quotes

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Inspirational #Witty #Truth

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

#Inspirational #Life #Beautiful

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Happiness #Happy #Pain

We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Inspirational #Philosophical #Knowledge

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Finding Happiness #Impossible #Difficult

Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Birthday #Congratulations #Age

A sense of humour is the only divine quality of man
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#God #Men #Quality

The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Funny #Writing #Humor

After your death you will be what you were before your birth.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Death #Suicide #Philosophical

Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Friendship #Best Friend #Fortune

A man who has not enough originality to think out a new title for his book will be much less capable of giving it new contents.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Book #Men #Thinking

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

#Relationship #Money #Couple

Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Death #Retirement #Philosophical

The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Happy #Philosophical #Inspiration

Life without pain has no meaning.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Pain #Without Pain

Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Life #Motivational #Being Strong

To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Overcoming #Delight #Coping

Life is full of troubles and vexations, that one must either rise above it by means of corrected thoughts, or leave it.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Mean #Vexation #Life Is

I believe that when death closes our eyes we shall awaken to a light, of which our sunlight is but the shadow.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Believe #Eye #Light

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

#Sacrifice #Men #Desire

This world could not have been the work of an all-loving being, but that of a devil, who had brought creatures into existence in order to delight in the sight of their sufferings.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Sight #Order #Suffering

To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Funny #Book #Reading

For it is a matter of daily observation that people take the greatest pleasure in that which satisfies their vanity; and vanity cannot be satisfied without comparison with others.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Vanity #People #Matter

Ordinary people merely think how they shall 'spend' their time; a man of talent tries to 'use' it.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Time #Men #Thinking

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Change #Growth #Eternal Love

Compassion is the basis of morality.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Wise #Ignorance #Caring

Honor means that a man is not exceptional; fame, that he is. Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Mean #Reality #Men

Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Money #Philosophical #Sea

If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Book #Life Is Short #Men

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Men #Long #Solitude

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

#Sleep #Insomnia #Redemption

I have not yet spoken my last word about women. I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself from above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more than a man.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Believe #Men #Growth

It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Inspirational #Pain #Philosophical

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

#Reading #Philosophical #Thinking

I've never known any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Reading #Trouble #Hours

Life is short and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Life #Philosophy #Long

There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Men #Opinion #Global Warming

We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Existentialism #Episodes #Nothingness

Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Pride #Racism #Lasts

Men best show their character in trifles, where they are not on their guard. It is in the simplest habits, that we often see the boundless egotism which pays no regard to the feelings of others and denies nothing to itself.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Inspirational #Character #Men

A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Men #Degrees #Intellect

Music is the melody whose text is the world.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Music #Wisdom #Philosophical

Animals hear about death for the first time when they die.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Animal #Firsts #First Time

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

#Lying #Believe #Men

In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Wisdom #Philosophical #Heart

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

#Art #Fear #Philosophical

Any foolish boy can stamp on a beetle, but all the professors in the world cannot make a beetle.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Boys #World #Foolish

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Birthday #Philosophical #Years

The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Sad #Death #Pain

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

#Inspirational #Science #Men

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

#Death #Suicide #Suicidal

For the world is Hell, and men are on the one hand the tormented souls and on the other the devils in it.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Men #Hands #Soul

Style is what gives value and currency to thoughts.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Giving #Style #Currency

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

#Philosophical #Intelligent #Men

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Loneliness #Philosophical #Fate

It is only in the microscope that our life looks so big.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Vision #Looks #Microscopes

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

#Life #Good Morning #Death

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.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Time #Mistake #Book

Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Positive #Pain #Philosophical

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

#Funny #Dog #Moving

A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Sad #Men #Want

If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Children #Men #Blood

Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Philosophical #Heart #Hatred

One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind. In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Book #Life Is Short #Order

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and 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

#Freedom #Being Alone #Men

It is only in the microscope that our life looks so big. It is an indivisible point, drawn out and magnified by the powerful lenses of Time and Space.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Life #Powerful #Space

The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Art #Book #Reading

Night gives a black look to everything, whatever it may be.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Night #Giving #Black

Talent is like a marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like a marksman who hits a target which others cannot see.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Target #Genius #Talent

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

#Stupid #Silly #Doctors

Were an Asiatic to ask me for a definition of Europe, I should be forced to answer him: It is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing, and that his present birth is his first entrance into life.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Men #Europe #Answers

It would be better if there were nothing. Since there is more pain than pleasure on earth, every satisfaction is only transitory, creating new desires and new distresses, and the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Pain #Animal #Agony

What give all that is tragic, whatever its form, the characteristic of the sublime, is the first inkling of the knowledge that the world and life can give no satisfaction, and are not worth our investment in them. The tragic spirit consists in this. Accordingly it leads to resignation.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Giving #Sublime #World

There is something in us that is wiser than our head.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Wiser

There is a wide difference between the original thinker and the merely learned man.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Men #Differences #Thinker

The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Positive #Philosophical #Compassion

To be shocked at how deeply rejection hurts is to ignore what acceptance involves. We must never allow our suffering to be compounded by suggestions that there is something odd in suffering so deeply. There would be something amiss if we didn't.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Hurt #Acceptance #Rejection

Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Thinking #Tasks

In our early youth we sit before the life that lies ahead of us like children sitting before the curtain in a theatre, in happy and tense anticipation of whatever is going to appear. Luckily we do not know what really will appear.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Children #Lying #Theatre

Optimism is not only a false but also a pernicious doctrine, for it presents life as a desirable state and man's happiness as its aim and object. Starting from this, everyone then believes he has the most legitimate claim to happiness and enjoyment. If, as usually happens, these do not fall to his lot, he believes that he suffers an injustice, in fact that he misses the whole point of his existence.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Believe #Fall #Men

It is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Quiet #Difficult

First the truth is ridiculed. Then it meets outrage. Then it is said to have been obvious all along.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Firsts #Truth Is #Outrage

If life — the craving for which is the very essence of our being — were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Essence #Boredom #Want

Still, instead of trusting what their own minds tell them, men have as a rule a weakness for trusting others who pretend to supernatural sources of knowledge.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Men #Mind #Weakness

A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner; nor with his fate if the corner granted him allows of his following his vocation without having to think about other people.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Fate #Thinking #People

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

#Sight #Watches #Letters

Whatever torch we kindle, and whatever space it may illuminate, our horizon will always remain encircled by the depth of night.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Night #Space #May

Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Death #Loss #Teach

No one writes anything worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Writing #Sake #Subjects

universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Friendship #Compassion #Guarantees

A man finds himself, to his great astonishment, suddenly existing, after thousands and thousands of years of non-existence: he lives for a little while; and then, again, comes an equally long period when he must exist no more. The heart rebels against this, and feels that it cannot be true.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Heart #Men #Years

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.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Library #Management #Volume

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.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Religious #War #America

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

#Philosophical #Not Giving Up #Never Giving Up

One should use common words to say uncommon things
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Writing #Use #Common

There is not much to be got anywhere in the world. It is filled with misery and pain; if a man escapes these, boredeom lies in wait for him at every corner. Nay more; it is evil which generally has the upper hand, and folly that makes the most noise. Fate is cruel and mankind pitiable.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Pain #Lying #Fate

Truth that is naked is the most beautiful, and the simpler its expression the deeper is the impression it makes; this is partly because it gets unobstructed hold of the hearer’s mind without his being distracted by secondary thoughts, and partly because he feels that here he is not being corrupted or deceived by the arts of rhetoric, but that the whole effect is got from the thing itself.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Beautiful #Art #Honesty

Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Character #Animal #Men

If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Psychology #Would Be #Able

Faith is like love: it does not let itself be forced.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

#Doe