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A Man's Knowledge May Be Said To Be Mature, In Other Words, When It Has Reached The Most Complete State Of Perfection To Which He, As An Individual, Is Capable Of Bringing It, When An Exact Correspondence Is Established Between The Whole Of His Abstract Ideas And The Things He Has Actually Perceived For Himself. His Will Mean That Each Of His Abstract Ideas Rests, Directly Or Indirectly, Upon A Basis Of Observation, Which Alone Endows It With Any Real Value; And Also That He Is Able To Place Every Observation He Makes Under The Right Abstract Idea Which Belongs To It.

-Arthur Schopenhauer

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A Man's Knowledge May

Arthur Schopenhauer

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A Man's Knowledge May Be Said To Be Mature, In Other Words, When It Has Reached The Most Complete State Of Perfection To Which He, As An Individual, Is Capable Of Bringing It, When An Exact Correspondence Is Established Between The Whole Of His Abstract Ideas And The Things He Has Actually Perceived For Himself. His Will Mean That Each Of His Abstract Ideas Rests, Directly Or Indirectly, Upon A Basis Of Observation, Which Alone Endows It With Any Real Value; And Also That He Is Able To Place Every Observation He Makes Under The Right Abstract Idea Which Belongs To It.

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Anyone Can Squash A Bug But All Professors Of This World Couldn't Build One.

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.

We Deceive And Flatter No One By Such Delicate Artificies As We Do Our Own Selves.

We Must Set Limits To Our Wishes, Curb Our Desires, Moderate Our Anger, Always Remembering That An Individual Can Attain Only An Infinitesimal Share In Anything That Is Worth Having; And That On The Other Hand, Everyone Must Incur Many Of The Ills Of Life

Talent Is Able To Achieve What Is Beyond Other People's Capacity To Achieve, Yet Not What Is Beyond Their Capacity Of Apprehension; Therefore It At Once Finds Its Appreciators. The Achievement Of Genius, On The Other Hand, Transcends Not Only Others' Capacity Of Achievement, But Also Their Capacity Of Apprehension; Therefore They Do Not Become Immediately Aware Of It. Talent 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.

Optimism Is Not Only A False But Also A Pernicious Doctrine, For It Presents Life As A Desirable State And Man's Happiness As Its Aim And Object. Starting From This, Everyone Then Believes He Has The Most Legitimate Claim To Happiness And Enjoyment. If, As Usually Happens, These Do Not Fall To His Lot, He Believes That He Suffers An Injustice, In Fact That He Misses The Whole Point Of His Existence.

The Greatest Intellectual Capacities Are Only Found In Connection With A Vehement And Passionate Will.

I Have Described Religion As The Metaphysics Of The People.

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

The Tallest Oak Tree Once Was An Acorn That Any Pig Could Have Swallowed.

Poverty And Slavery Are Thus Only Two Forms Ofthe Same Thing, The Essence Of Which Is That A Man's Energies Are Expended For The Most Part Not On His Own Behalf But On That Of Others.

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.

I've Never Known Any Trouble Than An Hour's Reading Didn't Assuage.

To Read A Book Is To Hold An Entire World In The Palm Of Your Hand. That World Is Unique To You; No Two Readers Can Ever Inhabit The Same World

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

It Is A Clumsy Experiment To Make; For It Involves The Destruction Of The Very Consciousness Which Puts The Question And Awaits The Answer.

It Is Not What Things Are Objectively And In Themselves, But What They Are For Us, In Our Way Of Looking At Them, That Makes Us Happy Or The Reverse.

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.

Compassion Is The Basis Of Morality.

That Arithmetic Is The Basest Of All Mental Activities Is Proved By The Fact That It Is The Only One That Can Be Accomplished By A Machine.

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?

Dissimulation Is Innate In Woman, And Almost As Much A Quality Of The Stupid As Of The Clever.

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

The Inexpressible Depth Of Music, So Easy To Understand And Yet So Inexplicable, Is Due To The Fact That It Reproduces All The Emotions Of Our Innermost Being, But Entirely Without Reality And Remote From Its Pain… Music Expresses Only The Quintessence Of Life And Its Events, Never These Themselves.

The World Is My Representation

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

A Word Too Much Always Defeats Its Purpose.

Thus, The Task Is Not So Much To See What No One Yet Has Seen, But To Think What Nobody Yet Has Thought About That Which Everybody Sees.

(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.

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.

Empirical Sciences Prosecuted Purely For Their Own Sake, And Without Philosophic Tendency Are Like A Face Without Eyes.

[t]he Moralists Of Europe [have] Pretended That Beasts Have No Rights... A Doctrine Revolting/gross/barbarous... On Which A Native Of The Asiatic Uplands Could Not Look Without Righteous Horror.

Want And Boredom Are Indeed The Twin Poles Of Human Life.

The Little Incidents And Accidents Of Every Day Fill Us With Emotion, Anxiety, Annoyance, Passion, As Long As They Are Close To Us, When They Appear So Big, So Important, So Serious; But As Soon As They Are Borne Down The Restless Stream Of Time They Lose What Significance They Had; We Think No More Of Them And Soon Forget Them Altogether. They Were Big Only Because They Were Near.

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.

Life Is A Constant Process Of Dying.

All Our Wanting Comes From Needs, Thus We Continiously Suffer. The Intellect Teaches Free Will, Free From Suffering.

Great Men Are Like Eagles, And Build Their Nest On Some Lofty Solitude.

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.

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.

Authors May Be Divided Into Falling Stars, Planets, And Fixed Stars: The First Have A Momentary Effect; The Second Have A Much Longer Duration; But The Third Are Unchangeable, Possess Their Own Light, And Work For All Time.

Men Need Some Kind Of External Activity, Because They Are Inactive Within.

Intellect Is A Magnitude Of Intensity, Not A Magnitude Of Extensity.

Our First Ideas Of Life Are Generally Taken From Fiction Rather Than Fact.

...this Our World, Which Is So Real, With All Its Suns And Milky Ways Is-nothing.

Two Chinamen Visiting Europe Went To The Theatre For The First Time. One Of Them Occupied Himself With Trying To Understand The Theatrical Machinery, Which He Succeeded In Doing. The Other, Despite His Ignorance Of The Language, Sought To Unravel The Meaning Of The Play. The Former Is Like The Astronomer, The Latter The Philosopher.

The Common Man Is Not Concerned About The Passage Of Time, The Man Of Talent Is Driven By It.

Virtue Is As Little To Be Acquired By Learning As Genius; Nay, The Idea Is Barren, And Is Only To Be Employed As An Instrument, In The Same Way As Genius In Respect To Art. It Would Be As Foolish To Expect That Our Moral And Ethical Systems Would Turn Out Virtuous, Noble, And Holy Beings, As That Our Aesthetic Systems Would Produce Poets, Painters, And Musicians.

The Fruits Of Christianity Were Religious Wars, Butcheries, Crusades, Inquisitions, Extermination Of The Natives Of America, And The Introduction Of African Slaves In Their Place.

Native American

It Is The Courage To Make A Clean Breast Of It In The Face Of Every Question That Makes The Philosopher.

The Vanity Of Existence Is Revealed In The Whole Form Existence Assumes: In The Infiniteness Of Time And Space Contrasted With The Finiteness Of The Individual In Both; In The Fleeting Present As The Sole Form In Which Actuality Exists; In The Contingency And Relativity Of All Things; In Continual Becoming Without Being; In Continual Desire Without Satisfaction; In The Continual Frustration Of Striving Of Which Life Consists. . . Time Is That By Virtue Of Which Everything Becomes Nothingness In Our Hands And Loses All Real Value.

A Man Can Be Himself Only So Long As He Is Alone.

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

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

Men Best Show Their Character In Trifles, Where They Are Not On Their Guard. It Is In The Simplest Habits, That We Often See The Boundless Egotism Which Pays No Regard To The Feelings Of Others And Denies Nothing To Itself.

Motives Are Causes Experienced From Within.

In Our Early Youth We Sit Before The Life That Lies Ahead Of Us Like Children Sitting Before The Curtain In A Theatre, In Happy And Tense Anticipation Of Whatever Is Going To Appear. Luckily We Do Not Know What Really Will Appear.

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.

To Feel Envy Is Human, To Savour Schadenfreude Is Devilish

Mensch Kann Tun Was Er Will; Er Kann Aber Nicht Wollen Was Er Will. (one Can Choose What To Do, But Not What To Want.)

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.

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

The Real Meaning Of Persona Is A Mask, Such As Actors Were Accustomed To Wear On The Ancient Stage; And It Is Quite True That No One Shows Himself As He Is, But Wears His Mask And Plays His Part. Indeed, The Whole Of Our Social Arrangements May Be Likened To A Perpetual Comedy; And This Is Why A Man Who Is Worth Anything Finds Society So Insipid, While A Blockhead Is Quite At Home In It.

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.

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

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.

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.

All The Cruelty And Torment Of Which The World Is Full Is In Fact Merely The Necessary Result Of The Totality Of The Forms Under Which The Will To Live Is Objectified.

Hence, In All Countries The Chief Occupation Of Society Is Card-playing, And It Is The Gauge Of Its Value, And An Outward Sign That It Is Bankrupt In Thought. Because People Have No Thoughts To Deal In, They Deal Cards, And Try And Win One Another’s Money. Idiots!

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

There Is No Opinion, However Absurd, Which Men Will Not Readily Embrace As Soon As They Can Be Brought To The Conviction That It Is Generally Adopted.

Not To My Contemporaries, Not To My Compatriots But To Mankind I Commit My Now Completed Work In The Confidence That It Will Not Be Without Value For Them, Even If This Should Be Late Recognised, As Is Commonly The Lot Of What Is Good. For It Cannot Have Been For The Passing Generation, Engrossed With The Delusion Of The Moment, That My Mind, Almost Against My Will, Has Uninterruptedly Stuck To Its Work Through The Course Of A Long Life. Preface To The Second Edition Of "the World As Will And Representation

If Two Men Who Were Friends In Their Youth Meet Again When They Are Old, After Being Separated For A Life-time, The Chief Feeling They Will Have At The Sight Of Each Other Will Be One Of Complete Disappointment At Life As A Whole; Because Their Thoughts Will Be Carried Back To That Earlier Time When Life Seemed So Fair As It Lay Spread Out Before Them In The Rosy Light Of Dawn, Promised So Much — And Then Performed So Little.

To Attain Something Desired Is To Discover How Vain It Is; And…though We Live All Our Lives In Expectation Of Better Things, We Often At The Same Time Long Regretfully For What Is Past. The Present, On The Other Hand, Is Regarded As Something Quite Temporary And Serving Only As The Road To Our Goal. That Is Why Most Men Discover When They Look Back On Their Life That They Have The Whole Time Been Living Ad Interim, And Are Surprised To See That Which They Let Go By So Unregarded And Unenjoyed Was Precisely Their Life, Was Precisely In Expectation Of Which They Lived.

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

Every Nation Ridicules Other Nations, And All Are Right.

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.

There Are 80,000 Prostitutes In London Alone And What Are They, If Not Bloody Sacrifices On The Altar Of Monogamy?

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

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.

Honor Means That A Man Is Not Exceptional; Fame, That He Is.

The Scenes And Events Of Long Ago, And The Persons Who Took Part In Them, Wear A Charming Aspect To The Eye Of Memory, Which Sees Only The Outlines And Takes No Note Of Disagreeable Details. The Present Enjoys No Such Advantage, And So It Always Seems Defective.

I Love Looking At Famous People. Because Of The Way They Look. Because Of The Way Photography Makes Them Look Famous.

History Is The Long, Difficult And Confused Dream Of Mankind.

The Conviction That The World And Man Is Something That Had Better Not Have Been, Is Of A Kind To Fill Us With Indulgence Towards One Another.

There Are, First Of All, Two Kinds Of Authors: Those Who Write For The Subject's Sake, And Those Who Write For Writing's Sake. ... The Truth Is That When An Author Begins To Write For The Sake Of Covering Paper, He Is Cheating The Reader; Because He Writes Under The Pretext That He Has Something To Say.

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

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.

Opinion Is Like A Pendulum And Obeys The Same Law.

Pride Is Generally Censured And Decried, But Mainly By Those Who Have Nothing To Be Proud Of.

Gaiety Alone, As It Were, Is The Hard Cash Of Happiness; Everything Else Is Just A Promissory Note.

Happiness And Love

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

Honor Has Not To Be Won; It Must Only Not Be Lost.

The Majority Of Men... Are Not Capable Of Thinking, But Only Of Believing, And... Are Not Accessible To Reason, But Only To Authority.

The Business Of The Novelist Is Not To Relate Great Events, But To Make Small Ones Interesting.

Still, Instead Of Trusting What Their Own Minds Tell Them, Men Have As A Rule A Weakness For Trusting Others Who Pretend To Supernatural Sources Of Knowledge.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Boredom Is Just The Reverse Side Of Fascination.

The Less One, As A Result Of Objective Or Subjective Conditions, Has To Come Into Contact With People, The Better Off One Is For It.

What A Man Can Do And Suffer Is Unknown To Himself Till Some Occasion Presents Itself Which Draws Out The Hidden Power. Just As One Sees Not In The Water Of An Unruffled Pond The Fury And Roar With Which It Can Dash Down A Steep Rock Without Injury To Itself, Or How High It Is Capable Of Rising; Or As Little As One Can Suspect The Latent Heat In Ice-cold Water.

A Writer Should Never Be Brief At The Expense Of Being Clear.

Treat A Work Of Art Like A Prince. Let It Speak To You First.

We Can Regard Our Life As A Uselessly Disturbing Episode In The Blissful Repose Of Nothingness.

There Is Only One Inborn Erroneous Notion ... That We Exist In Order To Be Happy ... So Long As We Persist In This Inborn Error ... The World Seems To Us Full Of Contradictions. For At Every Step, In Great Things And Small, We Are Bound To Experience That The World And Life Are Certainly Not Arranged For The Purpose Of Maintaining A Happy Existence ... Hence The Countenances Of Almost All Elderly Persons Wear The Expression Of ... Disappointment.

Although As A Rule The Absurd Culminates, And It Seems Impossible For The Voice Of The Individual Ever To Penetrate Through The Chorus Of Foolers And Fooled, Still There Is Left To The Genuine Works Of All Times A Quite Peculiar, Silent, Slow, And Powerful Influence; And As If By A Miracle, We See Them Rise At Last Out Of The Turmoil Like A Balloon That Floats Up Out Of The Thick Atmosphere Of This Globe Into Purer Regions. Having Once Arrived There, It Remains At Rest, And No One Can Any Longer Draw It Down Again.

He Who Lives To See Two Or Three Generations Is Like A Man Who Sits Some Time In The Conjurer's Booth At A Fair, And Witnesses The Performance Twice Or Thrice In Succession. The Tricks Were Meant To Be Seen Only Once; And When They Are No Longer A Novelty And Cease To Deceive, Their Effect Is Gone.

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

In Their Hearts Women Think That It Is Men's Business To Earn Money And Theirs To Spend It.

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

The Effect Of Music Is So Very Much More Powerful And Penetrating Than Is That Of The Other Arts, For These Others Speak Only Of The Shadow, But Music Of The Essence.

If A Man Wants To Read Good Books, He Must Make A Point Of Avoiding Bad Ones; For Life Is Short, And Time And Energy Limited.

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.

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

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.

In Our Monogamous Part Of The World, To Marry Means To Halve One's Rights And Double One's Duties.

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

If Children Were Brought Into The World By An Act Of Pure Reason Alone, Would The Human Race Continue To Exist? Would Not A Man Rather Have So Much Sympathy With The Coming Generation As To Spare It The Burden Of Existence, Or At Any Rate Not Take It Upon Himself To Impose That Burden Upon It In Cold Blood?

The Greatest Achievements Of The Human Mind Are Generally Received With Distrust.

Never Giving Up

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

Suffering By Nature Or Chance Never Seems So Painful As Suffering Inflicted On Us By The Arbitrary Will Of Another.

World Suffering

Life Is Neither To Be Wept Over Nor To Be Laughed At But To Be Understood.

Ordinary People Merely Think How They Shall 'spend' Their Time; A Man Of Talent Tries To 'use' It.

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.

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

Descartes Is Rightly Regarded As The Father Of Modern Philosophy Primarily And Generally Because He Helped The Faculty Of Reason To Stand On Its Own Feet By Teaching Men To Use Their Brains In Place Whereof The Bible, On The One Hand, And Aristotle, On The Other, Had Previously Served.

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.

Man Shows His Character Best In Trifles.

Marrying Means Doing Whatever Possible To Become Repulsed Of Each Other

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.

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.

Every Human Perfection Is Allied To A Defect Into Which It Threatens To Pass, But It Is Also True That Every Defect Is Allied To A Perfection.

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

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

A Reproach Can Only Hurt If It Hits The Mark. Whoever Knows That He Does Not Deserve A Reproach Can Treat It With Contempt.

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.

That Which Knows All Things And Is Known By None Is The Subject.

True Brevity Of Expression Consists In A Man Only Saying What Is Worth Saying, While Avoiding All Diffuse Explanations Of Things Which Every One Can Think Out For Himself.

Suicide May Also Be Regarded As An Experiment - A Question Which Man Puts To Nature, Trying To Force Her To Answer. The Question Is This: What Change Will Death Produce In A Man's Existence And In His Insight Into The Nature Of Things? It Is A Clumsy Experiment To Make; For It Involves The Destruction Of The Very Consciousness Which Puts The Question And Awaits The Answer.

In Many Cases Hate A Person Is Rooted In The Involuntary Estimate Of Its Virtues.

Personal Courage Is Really A Very Subordinate Virtue-a Virtue, Indeed, In Which We Are Surpassed By The Lower Animals; Or Else You Would Not Hear People Say, As Brave As A Lion.

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

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.

Without Books The Development Of Civilization Would Have Been Impossible. They Are The Engines Of Change, Windows On The World, "lighthouses" As The Poet Said "erected In The Sea Of Time." They Are Companions, Teachers, Magicians, Bankers Of The Treasures Of The Mind, Books Are Humanity In Print.

He Who Writes Carelessly Confesses Thereby At The Very Outset That He Does Not Attach Much Importance To His Own Thoughts.

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

Hope Is The Confusion Of The Desire For A Thing With Its Probability.

The Old Woman Dies, The Burden Is Lifted.

He Who Can See Truly In The Midst Of General Infatuation Is Like A Man Whose Watch Keeps Good Time, When All Clocks In The Town In Which He Lives Are Wrong. He Alone Knows The Right Time; What Use Is That To Him?

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

Genius Is Its Own Reward; For The Best That One Is, One Must Necessarily Be For Oneself. . . . Further, Genius Consists In The Working Of The Free Intellect., And As A Consequence The Productions Of Genius Serve No Useful Purpose. The Work Of Genius May Be Music, Philosophy, Painting, Or Poetry; It Is Nothing For Use Or Profit. To Be Useless And Unprofitable Is One Of The Characteristics Of Genius; It Is Their Patent Of Nobility.

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.

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

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.

A Man's Knowledge May Be Said To Be Mature, In Other Words, When It Has Reached The Most Complete State Of Perfection To Which He, As An Individual, Is Capable Of Bringing It, When An Exact Correspondence Is Established Between The Whole Of His Abstract Ideas And The Things He Has Actually Perceived For Himself. His Will Mean That Each Of His Abstract Ideas Rests, Directly Or Indirectly, Upon A Basis Of Observation, Which Alone Endows It With Any Real Value; And Also That He Is Able To Place Every Observation He Makes Under The Right Abstract Idea Which Belongs To It.

We Seldom Think Of What We Have But Always Of What We Lack. Therefore, Rather Than Grateful, We Are Bitter.

The Fundament Upon Which All Our Knowledge And Learning Rests Is The Inexplicable.

To Buy Books Would Be A Good Thing If We Could Also Buy The Time To Read Them; But The Purchase Of Books Is Often Mistaken For The Assimilation And Mastering Of Their Contents.

When You Look Back On Your Life, It Looks As Though It Were A Plot, But When You Are Into It, It's A Mess: Just One Surprise After Another. Then, Later, You See It Was Perfect.

There Is Something In Us That Is Wiser Than Our Head.

I Owe What Is Best In My Own Development To The Impression Made By Kant's Works, The Sacred Writings Of The Hindus, And Plato.

Sexual Passion Is The Cause Of War And The End Of Peace, The Basis Of What Is Serious... And Consequently The Concentration Of All Desire

Every Parting Gives A Foretaste Of Death; Every Remeeting A Foretaste Of The Resurrection. That Is Why Even People Who Are Indifferent To Each Other Rejoice So Much If They Meet Again After Twenty Or Thirty Years Of Separation.

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

There Is Only One Healing Force, And That Is Nature; In Pills And Ointments There Is None. At Most They Can Give The Healing Force Of Nature A Hint About Where There Is Something For It To Do.

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

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

Every State Of Welfare, Every Feeling Of Satisfaction, Is Negative In Its Character; That Is To Say, It Consists In Freedom From Pain, Which Is The Positive Element Of Existence.

For It Is A Matter Of Daily Observation That People Take The Greatest Pleasure In That Which Satisfies Their Vanity; And Vanity Cannot Be Satisfied Without Comparison With Others.

Pride Works From Within; It Is The Direct Appreciation Of Oneself.

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.

Knowledge Is To Certain Extent A Second Existence.

Marrying Means, To Grasp Blindfolded Into A Sack Hoping To Find Out An Eel Out Of An Assembly Of Snakes.

Every Nation Criticizes Every Other One - And They Are All Correct.

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.

We Should Comfort Ourselves With The Masterpieces Of Art As With Exalted Personages-stand Quietly Before Them And Wait Till They Speak To Us.

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.

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.

Life Is A Business That Does Not Cover The Costs.

Every Truth Passes Through 3 Stages Before It Is Recognized 1)ridicule 2) Opposition 3) Accepted As Self-evident.

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.

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.

Truth That Is Naked Is The Most Beautiful, And The Simpler Its Expression The Deeper Is The Impression It Makes; This Is Partly Because It Gets Unobstructed Hold Of The Hearer’s Mind Without His Being Distracted By Secondary Thoughts, And Partly Because He Feels That Here He Is Not Being Corrupted Or Deceived By The Arts Of Rhetoric, But That The Whole Effect Is Got From The Thing Itself.

Any Book, Which Is At All Important, Should Be Reread Immediately

For What Is Modesty But Hypocritical Humility, By Means Of Which, In A World Swelling With Vile Envy, A Man Seeks To Beg Pardon For His Excellences And Merits From Those Who Have None? For Whoever Attributes No Merit To Himself Because He Really Has None Is Not Modest, But Merely Honest.

All Wanting Comes From Need, Therefore From Lack, Therefore From Suffering.

A Man Of Talent Will Strive For Money And Reputation; But The Spring That Moves Genius To The Production Of Its Works Is Not As Easy To Name

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

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.

It Is In The Treatment Of Trifles That A Person Shows What They Are.

Every Child Is In A Way A Genius; And Every Genius Is In A Way A Child.

Restlessness Is The Hallmark Of Existence.

The First Forty Years Of Life Give Us The Text; The Next Thirty Supply The Commentary On It.

It Is Only In The Microscope That Our Life Looks So Big. It Is An Indivisible Point, Drawn Out And Magnified By The Powerful Lenses Of Time And Space.

That The Outer Man Is A Picture Of The Inner, And The Face An Expression And Revelation Of The Whole Character, Is A Presumption Likely Enough In Itself, And Therefore A Safe One To Go On; Borne Out As It Is By The Fact That People Are Always Anxious To See Anyone Who Has Made Himself Famous. Photography Offers The Most Complete Satisfaction Of Our Curiosity.

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Mary Lou Retton

George Henry Lewes

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