Arthur Schopenhauer - Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)

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A great affliction of all Philistines is that idealities afford them no entertainment, but to escape from boredom they are always in need of realities.

Arthur Schopenhauer
The hazardous part of the business is also the mere possibility, still to be admitted, that the ultimate insight into the nature of things attainable by man, into his very being and that of the world, might not coincide exactly with the doctrines which were in part made known to the former little race of the Jews and in part appeared in Jerusalem eighteen hundred years ago.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.

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.

Arthur Schopenhauer
One can forget everything, everything, only not oneself, one's own being.

Arthur Schopenhauer
If you feel irritated by the absurd remarks of two people whose conversation you happen to overhear, you should imagine that you are listening to a dialogue of two fools in a comedy.

Arthur Schopenhauer
After your death you will be what you were before your birth.

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.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.

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.

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

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

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

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

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
Chair-philosophy is burdened with the disadvantage which philosophy as a profession imposes on philosophy as the free investigation of truth, or which philosophy by government order imposes on philosophy in the name of nature and mankind.

Arthur Schopenhauer
A mother gave her children Aesop's fables to read, in the hope of educating and improving their minds; but they very soon brought the book back, and the eldest, wise beyond his years, delivered himself as follows: This is no book for us; it's much too childish and stupid. You can't make us believe that foxes and wolves and ravens are able to talk; we've got beyond stories of that kind! In these young hopefuls you have the enlightened Rationalists of the future.

Arthur Schopenhauer