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Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes

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Famous Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes

“If the world were a paradise of luxury and ease, a land flowing with milk and honey, where every Jack obtained his Jill at once and without any difficulty, men would either die of boredom or hang themselves; or there would be wars, massacres, and murders; so that in the end mankind would inflict more suffering on itself than it has now to accept at the hands of Nature.”

IfsMenWorldWarEndsHandsWould BeSufferingDiesAcceptingLandMankindDifficultyMurderLuxuryEaseBoredomParadiseHoneyMilkMassacresMilk And Honey
Book:The Suffering of the World
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“What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction. Deceptive images of a vague happiness hover before us in our dreams, and we search in vain for their original. Much would have been gained if, through timely advice and instruction, young people could have had eradicated from their minds the erroneous notion that the world has a great deal to offer them.”

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Book:101 Facts of life
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“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.”

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Book:On the Suffering of the World
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“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.”

LastsNationsReadyPrideFoolProudRacismResourcesFaultsTeethMiserableFollyAnti WarNailsBe ProudInferiorityPatriotism And Nationalism
Book:Parerga and Paralipomena: A Collection of Philosophical Essays
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“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.”

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Book:Parerga and Paralipomena: A Collection of Philosophical Essays
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“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.”

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Book:Collected Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer
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“Students and scholars of all kinds and of every age aim, as a rule, only at information, not insight. They make it a point of honour to have information about everything, every stone, plant, battle, or experiment and about all books, collectively and individually. It never occurs to them that information is merely a means to insight, but in itself is of little or no value.”

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Book:Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays
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“Our civilized world is nothing but a great masquerade. You encounter knights, parsons, soldiers, doctors, lawyers, priests, philosophers and a thousand more: but they are not what they appear - they are merely masks... Usually, as I say, there is nothing but industrialists, businessmen and speculators concealed behind all these masks.”

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Author:Arthur Schopenhauer
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“The best consolation in misfortune or affliction of any kind will be the thought of other people who are in a still worse plight than yourself; and this is a form of consolation open to every one. But what an awful fate this means for mankind as a whole! We are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher, who chooses out first one and then another for his prey.”

PeopleFirstsKindMeanStillsWholeEyeFormFateMankindFieldsAwfulMisfortunesPessimismAfflictionConsolationPreyLambsButchersPlight
Book:Studies in Pessimism
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“The vanity of existence is revealed in the whole form existence assumes: in the infiniteness of time and space contrasted with the finiteness of the individual in both; in the fleeting present as the sole form in which actuality exists; in the contingency and relativity of all things; in continual becoming without being; in continual desire without satisfaction; in the continual frustration of striving of which life consists. . . Time is that by virtue of which everything becomes nothingness in our hands and loses all real value.”

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Author:Arthur Schopenhauer
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“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.”

IfsMenWorldHandsPainLyingEvilWaitingFateMankindFilledMiseryCornersNoiseFollyUpper HandWait For HimMisery And Pain
Book:Collected Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer
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