Arthur Schopenhauer quotes - page 6

I have described religion as the metaphysics of the people. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
Men of learning are those who have read the contents of books. Thinkers, geniuses, and those who have enlightened the world and furthered the race of men, are those who have made direct use of the book of the world. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake. The first kind have had thoughts or experiences which seem to them worth communicating, while the second kind need money and consequently write for money. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
Consider the Koran... this wretched book was sufficient to start a world-religion, to satisfy the metaphysical need of countless millions for twelve hundred years, to become the basis of their morality and of a remarkable contempt for death, and also to inspire them to bloody wars and the most extensive conquests. In this book we find the saddest and poorest form of theism. Much may be lost in translation, but I have not been able to discover in it one single idea of value. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
Hatred comes from the heart contempt from the head and neither feeling is quite within our control. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
Only a male intellect clouded by the sexual drive could call the stunted, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged sex the fair sex. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
As my own father was sick, and miserably tied to his invalid's chair, he would have been abandoned had not an old servant performed for him a so-called service of love. My mother gave parties while he was perishing in solitude, and amused herself while he was suffering bitter agonies. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
We see in tragedy the noblest men, after a long conflict and suffering, finally renounce forever all the pleasure of life and the aims till then pursued so keenly, or cheerfully and willingly give up life itself. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
Descartes is rightly regarded as the father of modern philosophy primarily and generally because he helped the faculty of reason to stand on its own feet by teaching men to use their brains in place whereof the Bible, on the one hand, and Aristotle, on the other, had previously served. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
If at times I have thought myself unfortunate, it is because of a confusion, an error. I have mistaken myself for someone else... Who am I really? I am the author of The World as Will and Representation, I am the one who has given an answer to the mystery of Being that will occupy the thinkers of future centuries. That is what I am, and who can dispute it in the years of life that still remain for me? View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
...this our world, which is so real, with all its suns and milky ways is-nothing. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
The less one, as a result of objective or subjective conditions, has to come into contact with people, the better off one is for it. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
Every human perfection is linked to an error which it threatens to become. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
All wanting comes from need, therefore from lack, therefore from suffering. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
There is only one healing force, and that is nature; in pills and ointments there is none. At most they can give the healing force of nature a hint about where there is something for it to do. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
Fame is something that must be won. Honor is something that must not be lost. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
A sense of humor is the only divine quality of man. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
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. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
... that when you're buying books, you're optimistically thinking you're buying the time to read them. (Paraphrase of Schopenhauer) View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
We seldom speak of what we have but often of what we lack. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
Many undoubtedly owe their good fortune to the circumstance that they possess a pleasing smile with which they win hearts. Yet these hearts would do better to beware and to learn from Hamlet's tables that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
This art is music. It stands quite apart from all the others. In it we do not recognize the copy, the repetition, of any Idea of the inner nature of the world. Yet it is such a great and exceedingly fine art, its effect on man's innermost nature is so powerful, and it is so completely and profoundly understood by him in his innermost being as an entirely universal language, whose distinctness surpasses even that of the world of perception itself, that in it we certainly have to look for more than that exercitium arithmeticae occultum nescientis se numerare animi [exercise in arithmetic in which the mind does not know it is counting] which Leibniz took it to be. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
Childish and altogether ludicrous is what you yourself are and all philosophers; and if a grown-up man like me spends fifteen minutes with fools of this kind, it is merely a way of passing the time. I've now got more important things to do. Goodbye! View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer