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If The Lives Of Men Were Relieved Of All Need, Hardship And Adversity; If Everything They Took In Hand Were Successful, They Would Be So Swollen With Arrogance That, Though They Might Not Burst, They Would Present The Spectacle Of Unbridled Folly-nay, They Would Go Mad. And I May Say, Further, That A Certain Amount Of Care Or Pain Or Trouble Is Necessary For Every Man At All Times. A Ship Without Ballast Is Unstable And Will Not Go Straight.

-Arthur Schopenhauer

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If The Lives Of

Arthur Schopenhauer

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If The Lives Of Men Were Relieved Of All Need, Hardship And Adversity; If Everything They Took In Hand Were Successful, They Would Be So Swollen With Arrogance That, Though They Might Not Burst, They Would Present The Spectacle Of Unbridled Folly-nay, They Would Go Mad. And I May Say, Further, That A Certain Amount Of Care Or Pain Or Trouble Is Necessary For Every Man At All Times. A Ship Without Ballast Is Unstable And Will Not Go Straight.

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For Whence Did Dante Take The Materials For His Hell But From This Our Actual World? And Yet He Made A Very Proper Hell Of It.

The Little Honesty That Exists Among Authors Is Discernible In The Unconscionable Way They Misquote From The Writings Of Others.

Satisfaction Consists In Freedom From Pain, Which Is The Positive Element Of Life.

If A Relationship Is Perfectly Natural There Will Be A Complete Fusion Of The Happiness Of Both Of You-owing To Fellow-feeling And Various Other Laws Which Govern Our Natures, This Is, Quite Simply, The Greatest Happiness That Can Exist.

Reading Is A Mere Makeshift For Original Thinking.

Politeness Is To Human Nature What Warmth Is To Wax.

Women Remain Children All Their Lives, For They Always See Only What Is Near At Hand, Cling To The Present, Take The Appearance Of A Thing For Reality, And Prefer Trifling Matters To The Most Important.

No Rose Without A Thorn But Many A Thorn Without A Rose.

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.

In Action A Great Heart Is The Chief Qualification. In Work, A Great Head.

Marrying Means Doing Whatever Possible To Become Repulsed Of Each Other

Vengeance Taken Will Often Tear The Heart And Torment The Conscience.

Every Human Perfection Is Linked To An Error Which It Threatens To Turn Into

You Can Do What You Will, But In Any Given Moment Of Your Life You Can Will Only One Definite Thing And Absolutely Nothing Other Than That One Thing.

Absolutely Nothing

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. On The Other Hand, Such A Course Might Just As Well Be Called The Greatest Folly: For That Which In The Next Moment Exists No More, And Vanishes Utterly, Like A Dream, Can Never Be Worth A Serious Effort.

If, While Hurrying Ostensibly To The Temple Of Truth, We Hand The Reins Over To Our Personal Interests Which Look Aside At Very Different Guiding Stars, For Instance At The Tastes And Foibles Of Our Contemporaries, At The Established Religion, But In Particular At The Hints And Suggestions Of Those At The Head Of Affairs, Then How Shall We Ever Reach The High, Precipitous, Bare Rock Whereon Stands The Temple Of Truth?

Console Yourself By Remembering That The World Doesn't Deserve Your Affection.

Nothing In Life Gives A Man So Much Courage As The Attainment Or Renewal Of The Conviction That Other People Regard Him With Favor; Because It Means That Everyone Joins To Give Him Help And Protection, Which Is An Infinitely Stronger Bulwark Against The Ills Of Life Than Anything He Can Do Himself.

The Man Who Sees Two Or Three Generations Is Like One Who Sits In The Conjuror's Booth At A Fair, And Sees The Same Tricks Two Or Three Times. They Are Meant To Be Seen Only Once.

A Man Becomes A Philosopher By Reason Of A Certain Perplexity, From Which He Seeks To Free Himself.

The World Is My Representation

No One Can Transcend Their Own Individuality.

We Will Gradually Become Indifferent To What Goes On In The Minds Of Other People When We Acquire A Knowledge Of The Superficial Nature Of Their Thoughts, The Narrowness Of Their Views And Of The Number Of Their Errors. Whoever Attaches A Lot Of Value To The Opinions Of Others Pays Them Too Much Honor.

What Disturbs And Depresses Young People Is The Hunt For Happiness On The Firm Assumption That It Must Be Met With In Life. From This Arises Constantly Deluded Hope And So Also Dissatisfaction. Deceptive Images Of A Vague Happiness Hover Before Us In Our Dreams, And We Search In Vain For Their Original. Much Would Have Been Gained If, Through Timely Advice And Instruction, Young People Could Have Had Eradicated From Their Minds The Erroneous Notion That The World Has A Great Deal To Offer Them.

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.

To Truth Only A Brief Celebration Of Victory Is Allowed Between The Two Long Periods During Which It Is Condemned As Paradoxical, Or Disparaged As Trivial.

Religions Are Like Fireflies. They Require Darkness In Order To Shine.

Genuine Contempt, On The Other Hand, Is The Unsullied Conviction Of The Worthlessness Of Another.

For, After All, The Foundation Of Our Whole Nature, And, Therefore, Of Our Happiness, Is Our Physique, And The Most Essential Factor In Happiness Is Health, And, Next In Importance After Health, The Ability To Maintain Ourselves In Independence And Freedom From Care.

It Is Only The Hope Of What Is Claimed That Begets And Nurishes The Wish.

Man Shows His Character Best In Trifles.

The Principle Of Contradiction Establishes Merely The Agreement Of Concepts, But Does Not Itself Produce Concepts.

Boredom Is Just The Reverse Side Of Fascination: Both Depend On Being Outside Rather Than Inside A Situation, And One Leads To The Other.

A Word Too Much Always Defeats Its Purpose.

Knowledge Is To Certain Extent A Second Existence.

The Law Of Simplicity And Naïveté Applies To All Fine Art, For It Is Compatible With What Is Most Sublime.

A Man Of Genius Can Hardly Be Sociable, For What Dialogues Could Indeed Be So Intelligent And Entertaining As His Own Monologues?

Wealth As Well As Sea Water. The More We Drink, The More Thirsty. The So Famous

Every Man Takes The Limits Of His Own Field Of Vision For The Limits Of The World.

Patriotism, When It Wants To Make Itself Felt In The Domain Of Learning, Is A Dirty Fellow Who Should Be Thrown Out Of Doors.

One Can Forget Everything, Everything, Only Not Oneself, One's Own Being.

Forget Everything

Do Not Shorten The Morning By Getting Up Late, Or Waste It In Unworthy Occupations Or In Talk; Look Upon It As The Quintessence Of Life, As To A Certain Extent Sacred. Evening Is Like Old Age: We Are Languid, Talkative, Silly. 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.

Whatever Folly Men Commit, Be Their Shortcomings Or Their Vices What They May, Let Us Exercise Forbearance; Remember That When These Faults Appear In Others It Is Our Follies And Vices That We Behold.

Everybody's Friend Is Nobody's.

If People Insist That Honor Is Dearer Than Life Itself, What They Really Mean Is That Existence And Well-being Are As Nothing Compared With Other People's Opinions. Of Course, This May Be Only An Exaggerated Way Of Stating The Prosaic Truth That Reputation, That Is, The Opinion Others Have Of Us, Is Indispensable If We Are To Make Any Progress In The World.

It Would Be Better If There Were Nothing. Since There Is More Pain Than Pleasure On Earth, Every Satisfaction Is Only Transitory, Creating New Desires And New Distresses, And The Agony Of The Devoured Animal Is Always Far Greater Than The Pleasure Of The Devourer

To Conceal A Want Of Real Ideas, Many Make For Themselves An Imposing Apparatus Of Long Compound Words, Intricate Flourishes And Phrases, New And Unheard-of Expressions, All Of Which Together Furnish An Extremely Difficult Jargon That Sounds Very Learned. Yet With All This They Say-precisely Nothing.

In Youth It Is The Outward Aspect Of Things That Most Engages Us; While In Age, Thought Or Reflection Is The Predominating Qualityof The Mind. Hence, Youth Is The Time For Poetry, And Age Is More Inclined To Philosophy. In Practical Affairs It Is The Same: A Man Shapes His Resolutions In Youth More By The Impression That The Outward World Makes Upon Him; Whereas, When He Is Old, It Is Thought That Determines His Actions.

Reading Is Merely A Surrogate For Thinking For Yourself; It Means Letting Someone Else Direct Your Thoughts. Many Books, Moreover, Serve Merely To Show How Many Ways There Are Of Being Wrong, And How Far Astray You Yourself Would Go If You Followed Their Guidance. You Should Read Only When Your Own Thoughts Dry Up, Which Will Of Course Happen Frequently Enough Even To The Best Heads; But To Banish Your Own Thoughts So As To Take Up A Book Is A Sin Against The Holy Ghost; It Is Like Deserting Untrammeled Nature To Look At A Herbarium Or Engravings Of Landscapes.

... That When You're Buying Books, You're Optimistically Thinking You're Buying The Time To Read Them. (paraphrase Of Schopenhauer)

All Truth Passes Through Three Stages. First, It Is Ridiculed. Second, It Is Violently Opposed. Third, It Is Accepted As Being Self-evident.

Consciousness Is The Mere Surface Of Our Minds, Of Which, As Of The Earth, We Do Not Know The Inside, But Only The Crust.

Whether We Are In A Pleasant Or A Painful State Depends, Finally, Upon The Kind Of Matter That Pervades And Engrosses Our Consciousness And What We Compare It To - Better And We Envious And Sad, Worse And We Feel Grateful And Happy.

Mankind Cannot Get On Without A Certain Amount Of Absurdity.

The Alchemists In Their Search For Gold Discovered Many Other Things Of Greater Value.

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.

Night Gives A Black Look To Everything, Whatever It May Be.

To Expect A Man To Retain Everything That He Has Ever Read Is Like Expecting Him To Carry About In His Body Everything That He Has Ever Eaten.

Most Men Are So Thoroughly Subjective That Nothing Really Interests Them But Themselves.

The Man Who Goes Up In A Balloon Does Not Feel As If He Were Ascending; He Only Sees The Earth Sinking Deeper Below Him.

Scholars Are Those Who Have Read In Books, But Thinkers, Men Of Genius, World-enlighteners, And Reformers Of The Human Race Are Those Who Have Read Directly In The Book Of The World.

Style Is The Physiognomy Of The Mind. It Is More Infallible Than That Of The Body. To Imitate The Style Of Another Is Said To Be Wearing A Mask. However Beautiful It May Be, It Is Through Its Lifelessness Insipid And Intolerable, So That Even The Most Ugly Living Face Is More Engaging.

When A Man Has Reached A Condition In Which He Believes That A Thing Must Happen Because He Does Not Wish It, And That What He Wishes To Happen Never Will Be, This Is Really The State Called Desperation.

In The Whole World There Is No Study So Beneficial And So Elevating As That Of The Upanishads. It Has Been The Solace Of My Life, It Will Be The Solace Of My Death.

I Observed Once To Goethe That When A Friend Is With Us We Do Not Think The Same Of Him As When He Is Away. He Replied, "yes! Because The Absent Friend Is Yourself, And He Exists Only In Your Head; Whereas The Friend Who Is Present Has An Individuality Of His Own, And Moves According To Laws Of His Own, Which Cannot Always Be In Accordance With Those Which You Form For Yourself.

(politeness Is) A Tacit Agreement That People's Miserable Defects, Whether Moral Or Intellectual, Shall On Either Side Be Ignored And Not Be Made The Subject Of Reproach.

Style Is What Gives Value And Currency To Thoughts.

The Happiness Which We Receive From Ourselves Is Greater Than That Which We Obtain From Our Surroundings. . . . The World In Which A Person Lives Shapes Itself Chiefly By The Way In Which He Or She Looks At It.

It Is The Courage To Make A Clean Breast Of It In The Face Of Every Question That Makes The Philosopher. He Must Be Like Sophocles' Oedipus, Who, Seeking Enlightenment Concerning His Terrible Fate, Pursues His Indefatigable Inquiry Even Though He Divines That Appalling Horror Awaits Him In The Answer. But Most Of Us Carry With Us The Jocasta In Our Hearts, Who Begs Oedipus, For God's Sake, Not To Inquire Further.

...in The End Every One Stands Alone, And The Important Thing Is Who It Is That Stands Alone.

However, For The Man Who Studies To Gain Insight, Books And Studies Are Merely Rungs Of The Ladder On Which He Climbs To The Summit Of Knowledge. As Soon As A Rung Has Raised Him Up One Step, He Leaves It Behind. On The Other Hand, The Many Who Study In Order To Fill Their Memory Do Not Use The Rungs Of The Ladder For Climbing, But Take Them Off And Load Themselves With Them To Take Away, Rejoicing At The Increasing Weight Of The Burden. They Remain Below Forever, Because They Bear What Should Have Bourne Them.

Because People Have No Thoughts To Deal In, They Deal Cards, And Try And Win One Another's Money. Idiots!

The Best Consolation In Misfortune Or Affliction Of Any Kind Will Be The Thought Of Other People Who Are In A Still Worse Plight Than Yourself; And This Is A Form Of Consolation Open To Every One. But What An Awful Fate This Means For Mankind As A Whole! We Are Like Lambs In A Field, Disporting Themselves Under The Eye Of The Butcher, Who Chooses Out First One And Then Another For His Prey.

The Brut First Knows Death When It Dies, But Man Draws Consciously Nearer To It Every Hour That He Lives; And This Makes His Life At Times A Questionable Good Even To Him Who Has Not Recognised This Character Of Constant Anaihilation In The Whole Of Life.

Pride Is An Established Conviction Of One’s Own Paramount Worth In Some Particular Respect, While Vanity Is The Desire Of Rousing Such A Conviction In Others, And It Is Generally Accompanied By The Secret Hope Of Ultimately Coming To The Same Conviction Oneself. Pride Works From Within; It Is The Direct Appreciation Of Oneself. Vanity Is The Desire To Arrive At This Appreciation Indirectly, From Without.

If At Any Moment Time Stays His Hand, It Is Only When We Are Delivered Over To The Miseries Of Boredom.

Our Religions Will Never At Any Time Take Root; The Ancient Wisdom Of The Human Race Will Not Be Supplanted By The Events In Galilee. On The Contrary, Indian Wisdom Flows Back To Europe, And Will Produce A Fundamental Change In Our Knowledge And Thought.

A Man Can Do What He Wants, But Not Want What He Wants.

There Is Not Much To Be Got Anywhere In The World. It Is Filled With Misery And Pain; If A Man Escapes These, Boredeom Lies In Wait For Him At Every Corner. Nay More; It Is Evil Which Generally Has The Upper Hand, And Folly That Makes The Most Noise. Fate Is Cruel And Mankind Pitiable.

If At Times I Have Thought Myself Unfortunate, It Is Because Of A Confusion, An Error. I Have Mistaken Myself For Someone Else... Who Am I Really? I Am The Author Of The World As Will And Representation, I Am The One Who Has Given An Answer To The Mystery Of Being That Will Occupy The Thinkers Of Future Centuries. That Is What I Am, And Who Can Dispute It In The Years Of Life That Still Remain For Me?

Men Of Learning Are Those Who Have Read The Contents Of Books. Thinkers, Geniuses, And Those Who Have Enlightened The World And Furthered The Race Of Men, Are Those Who Have Made Direct Use Of The Book Of The World.

If We Suspect That A Man Is Lying, We Should Pretend To Believe Him; For Then He Becomes Bold And Assured, Lies More Vigorously, And Is Unmasked.

There Is A Wide Difference Between The Original Thinker And The Merely Learned Man.

Every Satisfaction He Attains Lays The Seeds Of Some New Desire, So That There Is No End To The Wishes Of Each Individual Will.

Just As A Stream Flows Smoothly On As Long As It Encounters No Obstruction, So The Nature Of Man And Animal Is Such That We Never Really Notice Or Become Conscious Of What Is Agreeable To Our Will; If We Are To Notice Something, Our Will Has To Have Been Thwarted, Has To Have Experienced A Shock Of Some Kind.

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.

And Yet, Just As Our Body Would Burst Asunder If The Pressure Of The Atmosphere Were Removed From It, So Would The Arrogance Of Men Expand, If Not To The Point Of Bursting Then To That Of The Most Unbridled Folly, Indeed Madness, If The Pressure Of Want, Toil, Calamity And Frustration Were Removed From Their Life. One Can Even Say That We Require At All Times A Certain Quantity Of Care Or Sorrow Or Want, As A Ship Requires Ballast, In Order To Keep On A Straight Course.

The Assumption That Animals Are Without Rights, And The Illusion That Our Treatment Of Them Has No Moral Significance, Is A Positively Outrageous Example Of Western Crudity And Barbarity. Universal Compassion Is The Only Guarantee Of Morality.

Education Perverts The Mind Since We Are Directly Opposing The Natural Development Of Our Mind By Obtaining Ideas First And Observations Last. This Is Why So Few Men Of Learning Have Such Sound Common Sense As Is Quite Common Among The Illiterate.

To Desire Immortality Is To Desire The Eternal Perpetuation Of A Great Mistake

It Is Most Important To Allow The Brain The Full Measure Of Sleep Which Is Required To Restore It; For Sleep Is To A Man's Whole Nature What Winding Up Is To A Clock.

In Early Youth, As We Contemplate Our Coming Life, We Are Like Children In A Theatre Before The Curtain Is Raised, Sitting There In High Spirits And Eagerly Waiting For The Play To Begin.

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.

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.

You Must Treat A Work Of Art Like A Great Man: Stand Before It And Wait Patiently Till It Deigns To Speak.

The Nobler And More Perfect A Thing Is, The Later And Slower It Is In Arriving At Maturity. A Man Reaches The Maturity Of His Reasoning Powers And Mental Faculties Hardly Before The Age Of Twenty-eight; A Woman At Eighteen.

To Become Reconciled To A Friend With Whom You Have Broken, Is A Form Of Weakness; And You Pay The Penalty Of It When He Takes The First Opportunity Of Doing Precisely The Very Thing Which Brought About The Breach.

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.

Alent 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.

Just As The Largest Library, Badly Arranged, Is Not So Useful As A Very Moderate One That Is Well Arranged, So The Greatest Amount Of Knowledge, If Not Elaborated By Our Own Thoughts, Is Worth Much Less Than A Far Smaller Volume That Has Been Abundantly And Repeatedly Thought Over.

I Constantly Saw The False And The Bad, And Finally The Absurd And The Senseless, Standing In Universal Admiration And Honour.

Genius And Madness Have Something In Common: Both Live In A World That Is Different From That Which Exists For Everyone Else.

To Be Alone Is The Fate Of All Great Minds—a Fate Deplored At Times, But Still Always Chosen As The Less Grievous Of Two Evils.

There Are Very Few Who Can Think, But Every Man Wants To Have An Opinion; And What Remains But To Take It Ready-made From Others, Instead Of Forming Opinions For Himself?

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.

It's The Niceties That Make The Difference Fate Gives Us The Hand, And We Play The Cards.

Newspapers Are The Second Hand Of History.

Whoever Wants His Judgment To Be Believed, Should Express It Coolly And Dispassionately; For All Vehemence Springs From The Will. And So The Judgment Might Be Attributed To The Will And Not To Knowledge, Which By Its Nature Is Cold.

Not To Go To The Theater Is Like Making One's Toilet Without A Mirror.

The Difficulty Is To Try And Teach The Multitude That Something Can Be True And Untrue At The Same Time.

What A Man Is Contributes Much More To His Happiness Than What He Has Or How He Is Regarded By Others.

A Man Who Has Not Enough Originality To Think Out A New Title For His Book Will Be Much Less Capable Of Giving It New Contents.

That A God Like Jehovah Should Have Created This World Of Misery And Woe, Out Of Pure Caprice, And Because He Enjoyed Doing It, And Should Then Have Clapped His Hands In Praise Of His Own Work, And Declared Everything To Be Very Good-that Will Not Do At All!

Faith Is Like Love: It Does Not Let Itself Be Forced.

The Man Never Feels The Want Of What It Never Occurs To Him To Ask For.

After Your Death You Will Be What You Were Before Your Birth.

Writers May Be Classified As Meteors, Planets, And Fixed Stars.

It Is Difficult To Find Happiness Within Oneself, But It Is Impossible To Find It Anywhere Else.

Finding Happiness

There Is More To Be Learnt From Every Page Of David Hume Than From The Collected Philosophical Works Of Hegel, Herbart, And Schleiermacher Are Taken Together.

How Is It Possible That Suffering That Is Neither My Own Nor Of My Concern Should Immediately Affect Me As Though It Were My Own, And With Such Force That Is Moves Me To Action?

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.

Genius Is To Other Gifts What The Carbuncle Is To The Precious Stones. It Sends Forth Its Own Light, Whereas Other Stones Only Reflect Borrowed Light.

Precious Stones

The Ordinary Method Of Education Is To Imprint Ideas And Opinions, In The Strict Sense Of The Word, Prejudices, On The Mind Of The Child, Before It Has Had Any But A Very Few Particular Observations. It Is Thus That He Afterwards Comes To View The World And Gather Experience Through The Medium Of Those Ready-made Ideas, Rather Than To Let His Ideas Be Formed For Him Out Of His Own Experience Of Life, As They Ought To Be.

The Fly Ought To Be Used As The Symbol Of Impertinence And Audacity; For Whilst All Other Animals Shun Man More Than Anything Else, And Run Away Even Before He Comes Near Them, The Fly Lights Upon His Very Nose.

In The Sphere Of Thought, Absurdity And Perversity Remain The Masters Of The World, And Their Dominion Is Suspended Only For Brief Periods.

Men Are The Devils Of The Earth, And The Animals Are Its Tormented Souls.

Reason Is Feminine In Nature; It Can Only Give After It Has Received.

The More Unintelligent A Man Is, The Less Mysterious Existence Seems To Him.

If Life — The Craving For Which Is The Very Essence Of Our Being — Were Possessed Of Any Positive Intrinsic Value, There Would Be No Such Thing As Boredom At All: Mere Existence Would Satisfy Us In Itself, And We Should Want For Nothing.

Life Swings Like A Pendulum Backward And Forward Between Pain And Boredom.

Life Is Short And Truth Works Far And Lives Long: Let Us Speak The Truth.

I Have Described Religion As The Metaphysics Of The People.

Freedom Of The Press Is To The Machinery Of The State What The Safety Valve Is To The Steam Engine.

Our Life Is A Loan Received From Death With Sleep As The Daily Interest On This Loan.

Just As One Spoils The Stomach By Overfeeding And Thereby Impairs The Whole Body, So Can One Overload And Choke The Mind By Giving It Too Much Nourishment. For The More One Reads The Fewer Are The Traces Left Of What One Has Read; The Mind Is Like A Tablet That Has Been Written Over And Over. Hence It Is Impossible To Reflect; And It Is Only By Reflection That One Can Assimilate What One Has Read. If One Reads Straight Ahead Without Pondering Over It Later, What Has Been Read Does Not Take Root, But Is For The Most Part Lost.

Music Is The Melody Whose Text Is The World.

At Bottom, Every State Regards Another As A Gang Of Robbers Who Will Fall Upon It As Soon As There Is An Opportunity.

The Scenes Of Our Life Are Like Pictures Done In Rough Mosaic. Looked At Close, They Produce No Effect. There Is Nothing Beautiful To Be Found In Them, Unless You Stand Some Distance Off.

Physics Is Unable To Stand On Its Own Feet, But Needs A Metaphysics On Which To Support Itself, Whatever Fine Airs It May Assume Towards The Latter.

A Poet Or Philosopher Should Have No Fault To Find With His Age If It Only Permits Him To Do His Work Undisturbed In His Own Corner; Nor With His Fate If The Corner Granted Him Allows Of His Following His Vocation Without Having To Think About Other People.

Man Is Never Happy, But Spends His Whole Life In Striving After Something Which He Thinks Will Make Him So.

Ist Es An Und Fu? R Sich Absurd, Das Nichtsein Fu? R Einubel Zu ? Halten; Da Jedes Ubel Wie Jedes Gut Das Dasein Zur Voraussetzung Hat, Ja Sogar Das Bewusstsein. It Is In And By Itself Absurd To Regard Non-existence As An Evil; For Every Evil, Like Every Good, Presupposes Existence, Indeed Even Consciousness.

A Man May Call To Mind The Face Of His Friend, But Not His Own. Here, Then, Is An Initial Difficulty In The Way Of Applying The Maxim, Know Thyself.

Pantheism Is Only A Polite Form Of Atheism.

[t]he Appropriate Form Of Address Between Man And Man Ought To Be, Not Monsieur, Sir, But Fellow Sufferer, Compagnon De Miseres.

Life Is A Language In Which Certain Truths Are Conveyed To Us; If We Could Learn Them In Some Other Way, We Should Not Live.

Life Is Full Of Troubles And Vexations, That One Must Either Rise Above It By Means Of Corrected Thoughts, Or Leave It.

Happiness Belongs To Those Who Are Sufficient Unto Themselves. For All External Sources Of Happiness And Pleasure Are, By Their Very Nature, Highly Uncertain, Precarious, Ephemeral And Subject To Chance.

It Is With Trifles, And When He Is Off Guard, That A Man Best Reveals His Character.

A Sense Of Humour Is The Only Divine Quality Of Man

It Is Only At The First Encounter That A Face Makes Its Full Impression On Us.

First Impression

The Present Is The Only Reality And The Only Certainty.

Jedetrennung Gibt Einenvorgeschmack Destodesund Jedes Wiedersehen Einenvorgeschmack Der Auferstehung. Every Parting Is A Foretaste Of Death, And Every Reunion A Foretaste Of Resurrection.

A Man Can Surely Do What He Wills To Do, But Cannot Determine What He Wills.

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.

The Auspices For Philosophy Are Bad If, When Proceeding Ostensibly On The Investigation Of Truth, We Start Saying Farewell To All Uprightness, Honesty And Sincerity, And Are Intent Only On Passing Ourselves Off For What We Are Not. We Then Assume, Like Those Three Sophists [fichte, Schelling And Hegel], First A False Pathos, Then An Affected And Lofty Earnestness, Then An Air Of Infinite Superiority, In Order To Impose Where We Despair Of Ever Being Able To Convince.

Reasonable And Vicious Are Quite Consistent With Each Other, In Fact, Only Through Their Union Are Great And Far-reaching Crimes Possible

Where There Is No Love, A Person's Faithfulness To The Marriage Bond Is Probably Against Nature.

Each Day Is A Little Life.

The Heavy Armor Becomes The Light Dress Of Childhood; The Pain Is Brief, The Joy Unending.

Of All The Intellectual Faculties, Judgment Is The Last To Mature. A Child Under The Age Of Fifteen Should Confine Its Attention Either To Subjects Like Mathematics, In Which Errors Of Judgment Are Impossible, Or To Subjects In Which They Are Not Very Dangerous, Like Languages, Natural Science, History, Etc.

When A New Truth Enters The World, The First Stage Of Reaction To It Is Ridicule, The Second Stage Is Violent Opposition, And In The Third Stage, That Truth Comes To Be Regarded As Self-evident.

A Man Of Intellect Is Like An Artist Who Gives A Concert Without Any Help From Anyone Else, Playing On A Single Instrument--a Piano, Say, Which Is A Little Orchestra In Itself. Such A Man Is A Little World In Himself; And The Effect Produced By Various Instruments Together, He Produces Single-handed, In The Unity Of His Own Consciousness. Like The Piano, He Has No Place In A Symphony; He Is A Soloist And Performs By Himself--in Soli Tude, It May Be; Or If In The Company With Other Instruments, Only As Principal; Or For Setting The Tone, As In Singing.

Journalists Are Like Dogs, When Ever Anything Moves They Begin To Bark.

The Ultimate Foundation Of Honor Is The Conviction That Moral Character Is Unalterable: A Single Bad Action Implies That Future Actions Of The Same Kind Will, Under Similar Circumstances, Also Be Bad.

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.

For An Act To Be Moral The Intention Must Be Based On Compassion, Not Duty. We Do Something Because We Want To Do It, Because We Feel We Have To Do It, Not Because We Ought To Do It. And Even If Our Efforts Fail - Or We Never Even Get To Implement Them - We Are Still Moral Because Our Motivation Was Based On Compassion.

Happiness Consists In Frequent Repetition Of Pleasure

Das Ganze Der Erfahrung Gleicht Einer Geheimschrift Und Die Philosophie Der Entzifferung Derselben. The Whole Of Experience Is Like A Cryptograph, And Philosophy Is Like The Deciphering Of It.

Talent Works For Money And Fame; The Motive Which Moves Genius To Productivity Is, On The Other Hand, Less Easy To Determine.

Truth That Is Naked Is The Most Beautiful, And The Simpler Its Expression The Deeper Is The Impression It Makes.

Martyrdom Is The Only Way A Man Can Become Famous Without Ability.

The Word Of Man Is The Most Durable Of All Material.

It Is Only The Man Whose Intellect Is Clouded By His Sexual Impulse That Could Give The Name Of The Fair Sex To That Undersized, Narrow-shouldered, Broad-hipped, And Short-legged Race.

The Shortness Of Life, So Often Lamented, May Be The Best Thing About It.

To Be Shocked At How Deeply Rejection Hurts Is To Ignore What Acceptance Involves. We Must Never Allow Our Suffering To Be Compounded By Suggestions That There Is Something Odd In Suffering So Deeply. There Would Be Something Amiss If We Didn't.

Everything That Happens, Happens Of Necessity.

Pride Works _from Within_; It Is The Direct Appreciation Of Oneself. Vanity Is The Desire To Arrive At This Appreciation Indirectly, From Without.

A Major Difficulty In Translation Is That A Word In One Language Seldom Has A Precise Equivalent In Another One.

We Can Do What We Wish, But We Can Only Wish What We Must.

Ignorance Is Degrading Only When Found In Company With Great Riches.

Religion Is The Masterpiece Of The Art Of Animal Training, For It Trains People As To How They Shall Think.

The First Rule For A Good Style Is To Have Something To Say; In Fact, This In Itself Is Almost Enough.

Every New Born Being Indeed Comes Fresh And Blithe Into The New Existence, And Enjoys It As A Free Gift: But There Is, And Can Be, Nothing Freely Given. It's Fresh Existence Is Paid For By The Old Age And Death Of A Worn Out Existence Which Has Perished, But Which Contained The Indestructible Seed Out Of Which The New Existence Has Arisen: They Are One Being.

What A Man Is: That Is To Say, Personality, In The Widest Sense Of The Word; Under Which Are Included Health, Strength, Beauty, Temperament, Moral Character, Intelligence, And Education.

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 Are And Forethought Must Be Exercised; As Lessons Well Learnt In Youth Are Never Forgotten.

People Of Wealth And The So Called Upper Class Suffer The Most From Boredom.

To Use Many Words To Communicate Few Thoughts Is Everywhere The Unmistakable Sign Of Mediocrity. To Gather Much Thought Into Few Words Stamps The Man Of Genius.

There Is In The World Only The Choice Between Loneliness And Vulgarity. All Young People Should Be Taught Now To Put Up With Loneliness ... Because The Less Man Is Compelled To Come Into Contact With Others, The Better Off He Is.

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 To You Than A Much Smaller Amount If You Have Not Thought It Over For Yourself; Because Only Through Ordering What You Know By Comparing Every Truth With Every Other Truth Can You Take Complete Possession Of Your Knowledge And Get It Into Your Power. You Can Think About Only What You Know, So You Ought To Learn Something; On The Other Hand, You Can Know Only What You Have Thought About.

It Is Only In The Microscope That Our Life Looks So Big.

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.

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.

Every Nation Ridicules Other Nations, And All Are Right.

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.

No Greater Mistake Can Be Made Than To Imagine That What Has Been Written Latest Is Always The More Correct; That What Is Written Later On Is An Improvement On What Was Written Previously; And That Every Change Means Progress.

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.

To Desire Immortality For The Individual Is Really The Same As Wanting To Perpetuate An Error Forever.

The Person Who Writes For Fools Is Always Sure Of A Large Audience.

The Fourfold Root Of The Principle Of Sufficent Reason Is "anything Perceived Has A Cause. All Conclusions Have Premises. All Effects Have Causes. All Actions Have Motives.

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