Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes and Sayings, Photo credit: Wikiquote
Excerpt from Wikipedia: Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind noumenal will. Building on the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant, Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that rejected the contemporaneous ideas of German idealism. He was among the first thinkers in Western philosophy to share and affirm significant tenets of Indian philosophy, such as asceticism, denial of the self, and the notion of the world-as-appearance. His work has been described as an exemplary manifestation of philosophical pessimism.
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Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes and Sayings
#1 Preface to the First Edition, The world as will and representation, TRANSLATION: E.F. J. PAYNE [S]
1. But life is short, and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.
#2 The world as will and representation, TRANSLATION: E.F. J. PAYNE [S]
2. Reason is feminine in nature; it can give only after it has received. Of itself alone, it has nothing but the empty forms of its operation.
#3 The world as will and representation, TRANSLATION: E.F. J. PAYNE [S]
3. …the effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence.
#4 The world as will and representation, TRANSLATION: E.F. J. PAYNE [S]
4. This actual world of what is knowable, in which we are and which is in us, remains both the material and the limit of our consideration.
#5 The world as will and representation, TRANSLATION: E.F. J. PAYNE [S]
5. Talent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like the marksman who hits a target, as far as which others cannot even see.
#6 The world as will and representation, TRANSLATION: E.F. J. PAYNE [S]
6. If a person is stupid, we excuse him by saying that he cannot help it; but if we attempted to excuse in precisely the same way the person who is bad, we should be laughed at.
#7 Chapter XXIV: On Matter, The world as will and representation, TRANSLATION: E.F. J. PAYNE [S]
7. …materialism…is the philosophy of the subject who forgets himself in his calculation.
#8 The world as will and representation, Volume 1, TRANSLATION: E.F. J. PAYNE [S]
8. …human life, like all inferior goods, is covered on the outside with a false glitter; what suffers always conceals itself.
#9 On Psychology, Essays and Aphorisms, Translation: R. J. HoLLiNGDALE, 1970, Penguin Books [S]
9. Hatred is a thing of the heart, contempt a thing of the head.
#10-12 CHAPTER I. Division of the Subject, The Wisdom of life, Translation: BAILEY SAUNDERS and ERNEST BELFORT BAX [S]
10. …the principal element in a man’s well-being,— indeed, in the whole tenor of his existence,— is what he is made of, his inner constitution.
11. …the same external events or circumstances affect no two people alike; even with perfectly similar surroundings every one lives in a world of his own.
12. The world in which a man lives shapes itself chiefly by the way in which he looks at it, and so it proves different to different men; to one it is barren, dull, and superficial; to another rich, interesting, and full! of meaning.
#13 CHAPTER II. Personality, or What a Man Is, The Wisdom of life, Translation: BAILEY SAUNDERS and ERNEST BELFORT BAX [S]
13. …what a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has, or how he is regarded by others.
#14 CHAPTER II. Personality, or What a Man Is, The Wisdom of life, Translation: BAILEY SAUNDERS and ERNEST BELFORT BAX [S]
14. It is not what things are objectively and in themselves, but what they are for us, in our way of looking at them, that makes us happy or the reverse.
#15-16 CHAPTER III. Property, or What a Man Has, The Wisdom of life, Translation: BAILEY SAUNDERS and ERNEST BELFORT BAX [S]
15. It is difficult, if not impossible, to define the limits which reason should impose on the desire for wealth; for there is no absolute or definite amount of wealth which will satisfy a man.
16. Riches, one may say, are like sea-water: the more you drink, the more thirsty you become; and the same is true of fame.
Variant: Wealth is like sea-water: the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.
#17 Section 4. — Honor, CHAPTER IV. Position, or a Man’s Place in the Estimation of Others, The wisdom of life, Translation: BAILEY SAUNDERS and ERNEST BELFORT BAX [S]
17. …a man who is quite sure that he has done nothing to deserve a reproach may treat it with contempt and will be safe in doing so.
#18 Chapter II: Our Relation to Ourselves, Counsels and Maxims, Translation: T. Bailey Saunders [S]
18. Instead, therefore, of always thinking about our plans and anxiously looking to the future, or of giving ourselves up to regret for the past, we should never forget that the present is the only reality, the only certainty; that the future almost always turns out contrary to our expectations; that the past, too, was very different from what we suppose it to have been, Both the past and the future are, on the whole, of less consequence than we think.
#19 Chapter II: Our Relation to Ourselves, Counsels and Maxims, Translation: T. Bailey Saunders [S]
19. 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.
#20 Chapter II: Our Relation to Ourselves, Counsels and Maxims, Translation: T. Bailey Saunders [S]
20. The young should early be trained to bear being left alone; for it is a source of happiness and peace of mind.
#21 Chapter III: Our Relation to Others, Counsels and Maxims, Translation: T. Bailey Saunders [S]
21. A secret is in my custody, if I keep it; but should it escape me, it is I who am the prisoner.
#22 Section 9, Counsels and Maxims, Translation: T. Bailey Saunders [S]
22. 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.
#23 Chapter V: The Ages of Life, Counsels and Maxims, Translation: T. Bailey Saunders [S]
23. Every generation, no matter how paltry its character, thinks itself much wiser than the one immediately preceding it, let alone those that are more remote.
#24-26 FURTHER PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS, Studies in Pessimism, Translation: T. Bailey Saunders [S]
24. Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
25. …everyone measures us with his own standard—generally about as long as a tailor’s tape, and we have to put up with it…
26. There is no doubt that many a man owes his good fortune in life solely to the circumstance that he has a pleasant way of smiling, and so wins the heart in his favour.
#27 THE VANITY OF EXISTENCE, Studies in Pessimism, Translation: T. Bailey Saunders [S]
27. …the greatest wisdom is to make the enjoyment of the present the supreme object of life; because that is the only reality, all else being merely the play of thought.
#28 Chapter VIII: ON ETHICS, Parerga & Paralipomena Volume Two, Translation: E. F. J. Payne [S]
28. …man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so. Other animals never do this except to satisfy their hunger or in the heat of conflict.
#29 CHAPTER XXII: ON THINKING FOR ONESELF, Parerga & Paralipomena Volume Two, Translation: E. F. J. Payne [S]
29. Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.
#30 Chapter XXIX: ON PHYSIOGNOMY, Parerga & Paralipomena Volume Two, Translation: E. F. J. Payne [S]
30. …evil thoughts and unworthy aspirations gradually leave their mark on the face, especially in the eyes.
#31 CHAPTER XXVI: Psychological Remarks, Parerga & Paralipomena Volume Two, Translation: E. F. J. Payne [S]
31. The doctor sees man in all his weakness; the lawyer sees him in all his wickedness; and the theologian sees him in all his folly and stupidity.
#32 CHAPTER VIII: THE PROOF NOW GIVEN CONFIRMED BY EXPERIENCE, The Basis of Morality, Translation: [S]
32. Boundless compassion for all living beings is the surest and most certain guarantee of pure moral conduct, and needs no casuistry.
#33 CHAPTER VIII: THE PROOF NOW GIVEN CONFIRMED BY EXPERIENCE, The Basis of Morality, Translation: [S]
33. Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he, who is cruel to living creatures, cannot be a good man.
#34 Letter to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1819
34. It is the courage to make a clean breast of it in the face of every question that makes the philosopher.