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Quote by Arthur Schopenhauer

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The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle

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Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer was a prominent German philosopher born on February 22, 1788, and died on September 21, 1860. He is one of the most important figures in 19th-century German philosophy and is known for his unique pessimistic philosophical ideas. more

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“Prefer de o mie de ori o existenţă dramatică, torturată pentru destinul ei în lume şi chinuită de cele mai consumatoare flăcări interioare, decât un om abstract, frământat de probleme abstracte care nu angajează fondul subiectivităţii noastre. Dispreţuiesc în această gândire absenţa riscului, a nebuniei şi a pasiunii. Cât de fecundă este o gândire vie, pasionată, în care lirismul circulă ca sângele în vine!”

“Existence, for me, is not merely suffering — it is a meticulous form of torture disguised as life. I move through a world that calls itself shared, yet what I carry is mine alone: a private apocalypse, constant and precise. Others ache, yes — but not like this. Not like me.”

“In fact, I sometimes think Keynes wrote his book with his tongue in his cheek. He was doubtless often surprised at the seriousness with which his colleagues took his theses. And if to all this one should remark that I am incapable of grasping the Keynesian intricacies, I would have to console myself with what an old Berlin banker said to an apprentice who was desperate because he was unable to comprehend what a client had written: "Young man, if you are not able to understand his letter, it is probably because it is not understandable.”

“Does it explain my astonishment the other day when Z, most humane, most modest of men, taking up some book by Rebecca West and reading a passage in it, exclaimed, 'The arrant feminist! She says that men are snobs!' The exclamation, to me so surprising - for why was Miss West an arrant feminist for making a possibly true if uncomplimentary statement about the other sex? - was not merely the cry of wounded vanity; it was a protest against some infringement of his power to believe in himself. Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.”