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Because Christian Morality Leaves Animals Out Of Account, They Are At Once Outlawed In Philosophical Morals; They Are Mere 'things,' Mere Means To Any Ends Whatsoever. They Can Therefore Be Used For Vivisection, Hunting, Coursing, Bullfights, And Horse Racing, And Can Be Whipped To Death As They Struggle Along With Heavy Carts Of Stone. Shame On Such A Morality That Is Worthy Of Pariahs, And That Fails To Recognize The Eternal Essence That Exists In Every Living Thing, And Shines Forth With Inscrutable Significance From All Eyes That See The Sun!

-Arthur Schopenhauer

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Because Christian Morality Leaves

Arthur Schopenhauer

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Because Christian Morality Leaves Animals Out Of Account, They Are At Once Outlawed In Philosophical Morals; They Are Mere 'things,' Mere Means To Any Ends Whatsoever. They Can Therefore Be Used For Vivisection, Hunting, Coursing, Bullfights, And Horse Racing, And Can Be Whipped To Death As They Struggle Along With Heavy Carts Of Stone. Shame On Such A Morality That Is Worthy Of Pariahs, And That Fails To Recognize The Eternal Essence That Exists In Every Living Thing, And Shines Forth With Inscrutable Significance From All Eyes That See The Sun!

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A Man Shows His Character Just In The Way In Which He Deals With Trifles, For Then He Is Off His Guard.

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.

First The Truth Is Ridiculed. Then It Meets Outrage. Then It Is Said To Have Been Obvious All Along.

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

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

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

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.

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

What People Commonly Call Fate Is, As A General Rule, Nothing But Their Own Stupid And Foolish Conduct.

Always To See The General In The Particular Is The Very Foundation Of Genius.

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.

It Is Only When A Man Is Alone That He Is Really Free.

There Are Two Things Which Make It Impossible To Believe That This World Is The Successful Work Of An All-wise, All-good, And At The Same Time, All-powerful Being; Firstly, The Misery Which Abounds In It Everywhere; And Secondly, The Obvious Imperfection Of Its Highest Product, Man, Who Is A Burlesque Of What He Should Be.

Honour Is External Conscience, And Conscience Is Inward Honour.

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.

As A General Rule, The Longer A Man's Fame Is Likely To Last, The Later It Will Be In Coming; For All Excellent Products Require Time For Their Development.

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.

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

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.

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To Find Out Your Real Opinion Of Someone, Judge The Impression You Have When You First See A Letter From Them.

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Music Is The Melody Whose Text Is The World.

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Congratulations

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Absolutely Nothing

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That I Could Clamber To The Frozen Moon. And Draw The Ladder After Me.

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

Every Generation, No Matter How Paltry Its Character, Thinks Itself Much Wiser Than The One Immediately Preceding It, Let Alone Those That Are More Remote.

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.

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The Safest Way Of Not Being Very Miserable Is Not To Expect To Be Very Happy.

To Repeat Abstractly, Universally, And Distinctly In Concepts The Whole Inner Nature Of The World , And Thus To Deposit It As A Reflected Image In Permanent Concepts Always Ready For The Faculty Of Reason , This And Nothing Else Is Philosophy.

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

Noise Is The Most Impertinent Of All Forms Of Interruption. It Is Not Only An Interruption, But Also A Disruption Of Thought.

For Our Improvement We Need A Mirror.

You Are Free To Do What You Want, But You Are Not Free To Want What You Want.

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.

If I Maintain My Silence About My Secret It Is My Prisoner...if I Let It Slip From My Tongue, I Am Its Prisoner.

Change Alone Is Eternal, Perpetual, Immortal.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

The Brain May Be Regarded As A Kind Of Parasite Of The Organism, A Pensioner, As It Were, Who Dwells With The Body.

Man Shows His Character Best In Trifles.

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

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.

Shame On Such A Morality That Is Worthy Of Pariahs, And That Fails To Recognize The Eternal Essence That Exists In Every Living Thing, And Shines Forth With Inscrutable Significance From All Eyes That See The Sun!

Vedas Are The Most Rewarding And The Most Elevating Book Which Can Be Possible In The World.

Life Is A Business That Does Not Cover The Costs.

To Free A Person From Error Is To Give, And Not To Take Away.

The Doctor Sees All The Weakness Of Mankind; The Lawyer All The Wickedness, The Theologian All The Stupidity.

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.

We Should Be Surprised That A Matter That Generally Plays Such An Important Part In The Life Of Man Has Hitherto Been Almost Entirely Disregarded By Philosophers, And Lies Before Us As Raw And Untreated Material.

Style Is What Gives Value And Currency To Thoughts.

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.

Boredom Is Just The Reverse Side Of Fascination.

Happiness Of Any Given Life Is To Be Measured, Not By Its Joys And Pleasures, But By The Extent To Which It Has Been Free From Suffering-from Positive Evil.

Reason Deserves To Be Called A Prophet; For In Showing Us The Consequence And Effect Of Our Actions In The Present, Does It Not Tell Us What The Future Will Be?

Reading Is Merely A Surrogate For Thinking For Yourself; It Means Letting Someone Else Direct Your Thoughts.

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

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.

The Charlatan Takes Very Different Shapes According To Circumstances; But At Bottom He Is A Man Who Cares Nothing About Knowledge For Its Own Sake, And Only Strives To Gain The Semblance Of It That He May Use It For His Own Personal Ends, Which Are Always Selfish And Material.

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?

Motives Are Causes Experienced From Within.

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.

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

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

The Greatest Of Follies Is To Sacrifice Health For Any Other Kind Of Happiness.

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.

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.

There Is Only One Inborn Error. And That Is The Notion That We Exist In Order To Be Happy.

If Anyone Spends Almost The Whole Day In Reading...he Gradually Loses The Capacity For Thinking...this Is The Case With Many Learned Persons; They Have Read Themselves Stupid

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

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?

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.

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

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.

...nothing At All Rides On The Life Or Death Of The Individual.

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.

Consciousness Makes The Individual Careful To Maintain His Own Existence; And If This Were Not So, There Would Be No Surety For The Preservation Of The Species. From All This It Is Clear That Individuality Is Not A Form Of Perfection, But Rather A Limitation; And So To Be Freed From It Is Not Loss But Gain.

Vulgar People Take Huge Delight In The Faults And Follies Of Great Men.

To Gain Anything We Have Longed For Is Only To Discover How Vain And Empty It Is; And Even Though We Are Always Living In Expectation Of Better Things, At The Same Time We Often Repent And Long To Have The Past Back Again.

There Is No More Mistaken Path To Happiness Than Worldliness, Revelry, High Life.

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.

A Man Of Correct Insight Among Those Who Are Duped And Deluded Resembles One Whose Watch Is Right While All The Clocks In The Town Give The Wrong Time.

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.

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.

Every Genius Is A Great Child; He Gazes Out At The World As Something Strange, A Spectacle, And Therefore With Purely Objective Interest

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.

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.

This Is The Case With Many Learned Persons; They Have Read Themselves Stupid.

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!

Life To The Great Majority Is Only A Constant Struggle For Mere Existence, With The Certainty Of Losing It At Last.

For The Purpose Of Acquiring Gain, Everything Else Is Pushed Aside Or Thrown Overboard, For Example, As Is Philosophy By The Professors Of Philosophy.

Malebranche Teaches That We See All Things In God Himself. This Is Certainly Equivalent To Explaining Something Unknown By Something Even More Unknown. Moreover, According To Him, We See Not Only All Things In God, But God Is Also The Sole Activity Therein, So That Physical Causes Are So Only Apparently; They Are Merely Occasional Causes. ( Recherches De La Vérité , Livre Vi, Seconde Partie, Chap. 3.) And So Here We Have Essentially The Pantheism Of Spinoza Who Appears To Have Learned More From Malebranche Than From Descartes.

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.

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

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.

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.

Before You Take Anything Away, You Must Have Something Better To Put In Its Place.

Something Better

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

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.

No One Writes Anything Worth Writing, Unless He Writes Entirely For The Sake Of His Subject.

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.

Exaggeration Of Every Kind Is As Essential To Journalism As It Is To Dramatic Art, For The Object Of Journalism Is To Make Events Go As Far As Possible.

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.

Students And Scholars Of All Kinds And Of Every Age Aim, As A Rule, Only At Information, Not Insight. They Make It A Point Of Honour To Have Information About Everything, Every Stone, Plant, Battle, Or Experiment And About All Books, Collectively And Individually. It Never Occurs To Them That Information Is Merely A Means To Insight, But In Itself Is Of Little Or No Value.

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.

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.

I Have Described Religion As The Metaphysics Of The People.

Compassion Is The Basis Of Morality.

Will Power Is To The Mind Like A Strong Blind Man Who Carries On His Shoulders A Lame Man Who Can See.

Means At Our Disposal Should Be Regarded As A Bulwark Against The Many Evils And Misfortunes That Can Occur. We Should Not Regard Such Wealth As A Permission Or Even An Obligation To Procure For Ourselves The Pleasures Of The World.

There Is Not A Grain Of Dust, Not An Atom That Can Become Nothing, Yet Man Believes That Death Is The Annhilation Of His Being.

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

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.

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.

If God Made This World, Then I Would Not Want To Be The God. It Is Full Of Misery And Distress That It Breaks My Heart.

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.

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.

World Suffering

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.

No One Knows What Capacities For Doing And Suffering He Has In Himself, Until Something Comes To Rouse Them To Activity: Just As In A Pond Of Still Water, Lying There Like A Mirror, There Is No Sign Of The Roar And Thunder With Which It Can Leap From The Precipice, And Yet Remain What It Is; Or Again, Rise High In The Air As A Fountain. When Water Is As Cold As Ice, You Can Have No Idea Of The Latent Warmth Contained In It.

I Know Of No More Beautiful Prayer Than That Which The Hindus Of Old Used In Closing: May All That Have Life Be Delivered From Suffering.

Every Miserable Fool Who Has Nothing At All Of Which He Can Be Proud, Adopts As A Last Resource Pride In The Nation To Which He Belongs; He Is Ready And Happy To Defend All Its Faults And Follies Tooth And Nail, Thus Reimbursing Himself For His Own Inferiority.

Reading Is A Mere Makeshift For Original Thinking.

Just As The Witticism Brings Two Very Different Real Objects Under One Concept, The Pun Brings Two Different Concepts, By The Assistance Of Accident, Under One Word.

The Wise Have Always Said The Same Things, And Fools, Who Are The Majority Have Always Done Just The Opposite.

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

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.

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Jean De La Bruyere

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