Famous Arthur Schopenhauer Quotations

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"Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"A man's delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The longer a man's fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"To find out your real opinion of someone, judge the impression you have when you first see a letter from them."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one's rights and double one's duties."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"It is in the treatment of trifles that a person shows what they are."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"A man's face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man's thoughts and aspirations."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"I've never know any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"A man can be himself only so long as he is alone."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"After your death you will be what you were before your birth."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"All truth passes through 3 stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Arthur Schopenhauer Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him."
by Henry David Thoreau
"Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another's money. Idiots!"
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Compassion is the basis of morality."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Compassion is the basis of all morality."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"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."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Every nation ridicules other nations -- and all are right."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Honor means that a man is not exceptional; fame, that he is. Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Honor has not to be won it must only not be lost."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"It is only a man's own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else's meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"It's the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Money is human happiness in the abstract; he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Money is human happiness in the abstract he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Music is the melody whose text is the world."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but is also a disruption of thought."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Rascals are always sociable, more's the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others' company."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Talent hits a target no one else can hit Genius hits a target no one else can see."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The amount of noise which anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party when the masks are dropped."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The greatest achievements of the human mind are generally received with distrust."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The memory should be specially taxed in youth, since it is then that it is strongest and most tenacious. But in choosing the things that should be committed to memory the utmost care and forethought must be exercised; as lessons well learnt in youth are never forgotten."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The memory should be specially taxed in youth, since it is then that it is strongest and most tenacious. But in choosing the things that should be committed to memory the utmost care and forethought must be exercised as lessons well learnt in youth are never forgotten."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The word of man is the most durable of all material."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome-to be got over."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"To live alone is the fate of all great souls."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity."
by Arthur Schopenhauer
"With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy."
by Arthur Schopenhauer


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