Quotessence
Home / Authors / Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsWorldPhilosophicalPessimismMayPeopleFirstsPhilosophyShouldThinkingHandsExistenceLifeSufferingCharacterGivingHumansMindMean

Famous Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes

“In youth it is the outward aspect of things that most engages us; while in age, thought or reflection is the predominating qualityof the mind. Hence, youth is the time for poetry, and age is more inclined to philosophy. In practical affairs it is the same: a man shapes his resolutions in youth more by the impression that the outward world makes upon him; whereas, when he is old, it is thought that determines his actions.”

MenWorldMindPhilosophyAgeActionYouthShapesReflectionAspectAffairDeterminePracticalsImpressionResolution
Book:Counsels and Maxims: Top of Schopenhauer
Create image

“Education perverts the mind since we are directly opposing the natural development of our mind by obtaining ideas first and observations last. This is why so few men of learning have such sound common sense as is quite common among the illiterate.”

MenMindFirstsIdeasLastsSoundNaturalCommonDevelopmentCommon SenseObservationOpposingIlliterateObtaining
Book:The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer (illustrated)
Create image

“NOT to my contemporaries, not to my compatriots but to mankind I commit my now completed work in the confidence that it will not be without value for them, even if this should be late recognised, as is commonly the lot of what is good. For it cannot have been for the passing generation, engrossed with the delusion of the moment, that my mind, almost against my will, has uninterruptedly stuck to its work through the course of a long life. preface to the second edition of "the world as will and representation”

IfsWorldShouldMindLongHas BeensMomentsValuesCoursesGenerationsMankindLateStuckCommitPassingPassingsDelusionRepresentationLong LifeCompleted Work
Book:The World as Will and Idea 1: Top of Schopenhauer
Create image

“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.”

WorldMindHas BeensSaidBookHumanityChangeTeacherImpossibleMagicSeaPoetDevelopmentCivilizationWindowTreasureCompanionPrintEnginesMagicianBankersLighthouseStandstill
Book:101 Facts of life
Create image

“Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read. If one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost.”

IfsGivingMindDoeHas BeensWholeBodyLostLeftToo MuchImpossibleWrittenReflectionRootsOver ItStomachFewerSpoilChokeNourishmentPonderingTabletsOverload
Book:Essays of Schopenhauer
Create image

“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.”

PeopleIfsWorldMindHas BeensDreamYoungDealsAdviceMetsOffersOriginalsNotionAriseVainFirmAssumptionInstructionDepressingVagueOur DreamsHuntsDissatisfactionDeceptiveDeludedTimely
Book:101 Facts of life
Create image

“The ordinary method of education is to imprint ideas and opinions, in the strict sense of the word, prejudices, on the mind of the child, before it has had any but a very few particular observations. It is thus that he afterwards comes to view the world and gather experience through the medium of those ready-made ideas, rather than to let his ideas be formed for him out of his own experience of life, as they ought to be.”

WorldMindChildrenMadeIdeasViewsOpinionParticularReadyOughtOrdinaryPrejudiceMethodMediumsObservationStrict
Book:Studies in Pessimism
Create image

“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.”

FeelsMindArtWholeBeautifulEffectsHonestyExpressionDeeperImpressionNakedRhetoricDeceivedDistracted
Book:Essays of Schopenhauer: Top Essays
Create image