Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a
German philosopher best known for his book, The World as Will and
Representation (German: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung), in which
he claimed that our world is driven by a continually dissatisfied will, continually seeking satisfaction. He became
a student at the University of Göttingen in
1809. There he studied metaphysics and psychology
under Gottlob Ernst Schulze, the author of Aenesidemus, who advised him to concentrate
on Plato and Immanuel
Kant. In Berlin, from 1811 to 1812, he had attended lectures by the
prominent post-Kantian philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte and the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher.
Here is his Quotes,
1. Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an
uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.
2. 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.
3. All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it
is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
4. With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those
who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.
5. Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first.
6. After your death you will be what you were before your birth.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning,
is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.
10. There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be
overcome; to be got over.
11. Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive
element of life.
12. A man can be himself only so long as he is alone.
13. The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of
happiness.
14. 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.
15. Rascals are always sociable, mores’ the pity! And the chief sign that a
man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in
others' company.
18. Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by
nature enemies.
19. Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and
win one another's money. Idiots!
20. Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and
win one another's money. Idiots!
21. 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.
22. To find out your real opinion of someone, judge the impression you have
when you first see a letter from them.
23. Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.
24. A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.
25. 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.
26. It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.
27. Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.
28. The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.
29. The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be
true and untrue at the same time.
30. The longer a man's fame is likely to last; the longer it will be in
coming.
31. Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his
shoulders a lame man who can see.
32. The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority,
have always done just the opposite.
33. 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.
34. 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.
35. In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of
the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.
36. 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.
37. Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being
outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.
38. Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the
limits of the world.
39. 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.
40. In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great
head.
41. In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one's
rights and double one's duties.
42. The greatest achievements of the human mind are generally received with
distrust.
43. The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a
pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.
44. The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to
him.
45. Wealth is like sea-water; the
more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.
46. Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune.
47. 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.
48. Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the
face, especially the eyes.
49. Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering
inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.
50. 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.
51. The word of man is the most durable of all material.
52. To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away.
53. The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the
wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.
54. 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.
55. 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.
56. If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so
uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.
57. We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other
people.
58. The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the
inexplicable.
59. The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply
the commentary on it.
60. Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.
61. 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.
62. Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the
intellect.
63. Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of
with one's own.
64. The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.
Fear not
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death
that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass
over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to
see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will
remain." - Frank Herbert
Trouble
"The trouble is that people seem to expect happiness in life. I can't
imagine why; but they do. They are unhappy before they marry, and they imagine
to themselves that the reason of their unhappiness will be removed when they
are married. When it isn't they blame the other person, which is clearly
absurd. I believe that is what generally starts the trouble." - Nancy
Mitford
What Government purpose
"The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live
in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed,
not for the governors." - Thomas Jefferson
Seek and you will find
"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so
long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for
us." - Helen Keller
Cheerfulness
"Cheerfulness is that quality which enables one to make others happy.
It takes its origin half in personal goodness, and half in the belief of the
personal goodness of others." - Fulton Sheen
- "No power is strong enough to be lasting if it labours under the weight
of fear." - Cicero
- "There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the
fear of failure." - Paulo Coelho
- "Don't give in to your fears. If you do, you won't be able to talk to
your heart." - Paulo Coelho
- "You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to
do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind." -
Dale Carnegie
- "If you die you're completely happy and your soul somewhere lives on. I’m
not afraid of dying. Total peace after death, becoming someone else is the best
hope I've got." - Kurt Cobain
- "A coward dies a thousand deaths... a soldier dies but once." -
William Shakespeare
- "We should never negotiate out of fear, but we should never fear to
negotiate." - John F. Kennedy
- "Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the detail of how he
lived and how he died that distinguishes one man from another." - Ernest
Hemingway
- "I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to
choose love over fear." - Oprah Winfrey
- "Fear not death for the sooner we die, the longer we shall be
immortal." - Benjamin Franklin
- "An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a
wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind."
- Buddha
- "Pride is an admission of weakness; it secretly fears all competition
and dreads all rivals." - Fulton Sheen
- "A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he
fears." - Michel de Montaigne
- "The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go
outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and
God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be." - Anne
Frank
- "Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to
replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of
illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing." -
Anais Nin
- "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death
that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass
over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to
see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
- Frank Herbert
- "The trouble is that people seem to expect happiness in life. I can't
imagine why; but they do. They are unhappy before they marry, and they imagine
to themselves that the reason of their unhappiness will be removed when they
are married. When it isn't they blame the other person, which is clearly
absurd. I believe that is what generally starts the trouble." - Nancy
Mitford
- "The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live
in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed,
not for the governors." - Thomas Jefferson
- "When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so
long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for
us." - Helen Keller
- "Cheerfulness is that quality which enables one to make others happy.
It takes its origin half in personal goodness, and half in the belief of the
personal goodness of others." - Fulton Sheen
- People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The
leader leads, and the boss drives. Author:
Theodore Roosevelt
- It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front,
especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the
front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership. Author: Nelson Mandela
- Ultimately property rights and personal rights are the same
thing. Author: Calvin Coolidge
- Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty. Author: John Adams
- Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized
robbery. Author: Calvin Coolidge
- Advertising is legalized lying. Author: H. G. Wells
- We never know the love of a parent till we become parents
ourselves. Author: Henry Ward Beecher
- Fear not those who argue but those who dodge. Author: Dale Carnegie
- The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who
lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
Author: Mark Twain
- It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor
the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to
change. Author: Charles Darwin
- Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to
change the world. Author: Nelson Mandela
- I do not want a husband who honours me as a queen, if he
does not love me as a woman. Author:
Elizabeth I
- To know is to know that you know nothing. That is the
meaning of true knowledge. Author:
Socrates
- Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on
this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
Author: Abraham Lincoln
- One man with a head on his shoulders is worth a dozen
without. Author: Elizabeth I
- Experience - the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an
undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced. Author: Ambrose Bierce
- There is no success without hardship. Author: Sophocles
- The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the
belief in a thing makes it happen. Author:
Frank Lloyd Wright
- Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish - too
much handling will spoil it. Author: Lao
Tzu
