Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes

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Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but also a disruption of thought.

Arthur Schopenhauer
That books do not take the place of experience, and that learning is no substitute for genius, are two kindred phenomena; their common ground is that the abstract can never take the place of the perceptive.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own.

Arthur Schopenhauer
The chief objection I have to Pantheism is that it says nothing. To call the world "God" is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym for the word "world".

Arthur Schopenhauer
All wanting comes from need, therefore from lack, therefore from suffering.

Arthur Schopenhauer
For a work to become immortal it must possess so many excellences that it will not be easy to find a man who understands and values them all; so that there will be in all ages men who recognise and appreciate some of these excellences; by this means the credit of the work will be retained throughout the long course of centuries and ever-changing interests, for, as it is appreciated first in this sense, then in that, the interest is never exhausted.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.

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.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Talent works for money and fame; the motive which moves genius to productivity is, on the other hand, less easy to determine. It isn't money, for genius seldom gets any. It isn't fame: fame is too uncertain and, more closely considered, of too little worth. Nor is it strictly for its own pleasure, for the great exertion involved almost outweighs the pleasure. It is rather an instinct of a unique sort by virtue of which the individual possessed of genius is impelled to express what he has seen and felt in enduring works without being conscious of any further motivation. It takes place, by and large, with the same sort of necessity as a tree brings forth fruit, and demands of the world no more than a soil on which the individual can flourish.

Arthur Schopenhauer
If the world were a paradise of luxury and ease, a land flowing with milk and honey, where every Jack obtained his Jill at once and without any difficulty, men would either die of boredom or hang themselves; or there would be wars, massacres, and murders; so that in the end mankind would inflict more suffering on itself than it has now to accept at the hands of Nature.

Arthur Schopenhauer
I have not yet spoken my last word about women. I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself from above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more than a man.

Arthur Schopenhauer
A reproach can only hurt if it hits the mark. Whoever knows that he does not deserve a reproach can treat it with contempt.

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.

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.

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.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another's money. Idiots!

Arthur Schopenhauer
Every true thinker for himself is so far like a monarch; he is absolute, and recognises nobody above him. His judgments, like the decrees of a monarch, spring from his own sovereign power and proceed directly from himself. He takes as little notice of authority as a monarch does of a command; nothing is valid unless he has himself authorised it. On the other hand, those of vulgar minds, who are swayed by all kinds of current opinions, authorities, and prejudices, are like the people which in silence obey the law and commands.

Arthur Schopenhauer
There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life.

Arthur Schopenhauer
The ordinary man has no sense for general truths…the genius on the contrary, overlooks and neglects what is individual.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Every time a man is begotten and born, the clock of human life is wound up anew to repeat once more its same old tune that has already been played innumerable times, movement by movement and measure by measure, with insignificant variations.

Arthur Schopenhauer
One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind. In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Memory works like the collection glass in the Camera obscura: it gathers everything together and therewith produces a far more beautiful picture than was present originally.

Arthur Schopenhauer
What give all that is tragic, whatever its form, the characteristic of the sublime, is the first inkling of the knowledge that the world and life can give no satisfaction, and are not worth our investment in them. The tragic spirit consists in this. Accordingly it leads to resignation.

Arthur Schopenhauer
The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy.

Arthur Schopenhauer
In every page of David Hume, there is more to be learned than from Hegel's, Herbart's and Schleiermacher's complete philosophical works.

Arthur Schopenhauer
He who writes carelessly confesses thereby at the very outset that he does not attach much importance to his own thoughts.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.

Arthur Schopenhauer
As the strata of the earth preserve in succession the living creatures of past epochs, so the shelves of libraries preserve in succession the errors of the past and their expositions, which like the former were very lively and made a great commotion in their own age but now stand petrified and stiff in a place where only the literary palaeontologist regards them.

Arthur Schopenhauer
A book can never be anything more than the impression of its author's thoughts. The value of these thoughts lies either in the matter about which he has thought, or in the form in which he develops his matter — that is to say, what he has thought about it.

Arthur Schopenhauer
If at any moment Time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the miseries of boredom.

Arthur Schopenhauer