Background Image

...

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.

-Arthur Schopenhauer

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Every Miserable Fool Who

Arthur Schopenhauer

...

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.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Arthur Schopenhauer

Reading Is A Mere Makeshift For Original Thinking.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Alle Befriedigung, Oder Was Man Gemeinhin Glu« Ck Nennt, Ist Eigentlich Und Wesentlich Immer Nur Negativ Und Durchaus Nie Positiv. All Satisfaction, Or What Iscommonlycalled Happiness, Is Really And Essentially Always Negative Only, And Never Positive.

To Become Indignant At [people's] Conduct Is As Foolish As To Be Angry With A Stone Because It Rolls Into Your Path. And With Many People The Wisest Thing You Can Do, Is To Resolve To Make Use Of Those Whom You Cannot Alter.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The Universe Is A Dream Dreamed By A Single Dreamer Where All The Dream Characters Dream Too.

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.

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.

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.

All Pantheism Must Ultimately Be Shipwrecked On The Inescapable Demands Of Ethics, And Then On The Evil And Suffering Of The World. If The World Is A Theophany , Then Everything Done By Man, And Even By Animal, Is Equally Divine And Excellent; Nothing Can Be More Censurable And Nothing More Praiseworthy Than Anything Else; Hence There Is No Ethics.

Mostly The Loss Teaches Us Only About The Value Of Things.

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

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.

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

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

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

A Man Who Has No Mental Needs, Because His Intellect Is Of The Narrow And Normal Amount, Is, In The Strict Sense Of The Word, What Is Called A Philistine.

Any Foolish Boy Can Stamp On A Beetle, But All The Professors In The World Cannot Make A Beetle.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

...a Genuine Work Of Art, Can Never Be False, Nor Can It Be Discredited Through The Lapse Of Time, For It Does Not Present An Opinion But The Thing Itself.

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.

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.

On The Path Of Actions, Great Heart Is The Chief Recommendation; On That Works, A Great Head.

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?

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

World Suffering

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

In Order To Increase His Pleasures, Man Has Intentionally Added To The Number And Pressure Of His Needs, Which In Their Original State Were Not Much More Difficult To Satisfy Than Those Of The Brute. Hence Luxury In All Its Forms; Delicate Food, The Use Of Tobacco And Opium, Spirituous Liquors, Fine Clothes, And The Thousand And One Things That He Considers Necessary To His Existence.

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

If The World Were A Paradise Of Luxury And Ease, A Land Flowing With Milk And Honey, Where Every Jack Obtained His Jill At Once And Without Any Difficulty, Men Would Either Die Of Boredom Or Hang Themselves; Or There Would Be Wars, Massacres, And Murders; So That In The End Mankind Would Inflict More Suffering On Itself Than It Has Now To Accept At The Hands Of Nature.

It Is A Wise Thing To Be Polite; Consequently, It Is A Stupid Thing To Be Rude. To Make Enemies By Unnecessary And Willful Incivility, Is Just As Insane A Proceeding As To Set Your House On Fire. For Politeness Is Like A Counter--an Avowedly False Coin, With Which It Is Foolish To Be Stingy.

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

Monotheistic Religions Alone Furnish The Spectacle Of Religious Wars, Religious Persecutions, Heretical Tribunals, That Breaking Of Idols And Destruction Of Images Of The Gods, That Razing Of Indian Temples And Egyptian Colossi, Which Had Looked On The Sun 3,000 Years: Just Because A Jealous God Had Said, Thou Shalt Make No Graven Image.

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

Animals Hear About Death For The First Time When They Die.

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

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

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!

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

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

Were An Asiatic To Ask Me For A Definition Of Europe, I Should Be Forced To Answer Him: It Is That Part Of The World Which Is Haunted By The Incredible Delusion That Man Was Created Out Of Nothing, And That His Present Birth Is His First Entrance Into Life.

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.

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

Apart From Man, No Being Wonders At Its Own Experience.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Many Undoubtedly Owe Their Good Fortune To The Circumstance That They Possess A Pleasing Smile With Which They Win Hearts. Yet These Hearts Would Do Better To Beware And To Learn From Hamlet's Tables That One May Smile, And Smile, And Be A Villain.

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.

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

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

Everybody's Friend Is Nobody's.

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.

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

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.

Happiness Consists In Frequent Repetition Of Pleasure

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

Consider The Koran... This Wretched Book Was Sufficient To Start A World-religion, To Satisfy The Metaphysical Need Of Countless Millions For Twelve Hundred Years, To Become The Basis Of Their Morality And Of A Remarkable Contempt For Death, And Also To Inspire Them To Bloody Wars And The Most Extensive Conquests. In This Book We Find The Saddest And Poorest Form Of Theism. Much May Be Lost In Translation, But I Have Not Been Able To Discover In It One Single Idea Of Value.

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

Truth Is Most Beautiful Undraped.

As My Own Father Was Sick, And Miserably Tied To His Invalid's Chair, He Would Have Been Abandoned Had Not An Old Servant Performed For Him A So-called Service Of Love. My Mother Gave Parties While He Was Perishing In Solitude, And Amused Herself While He Was Suffering Bitter Agonies

A Man Never Is Happy, But Spends His Whole Life In Striving After Something Which He Thinks Will Make Him So; He Seldom Attains His Goal, And When He Does, It Is Only To Be Disappointed; He Is Mostly Shipwrecked In The End, And Comes Into Harbor With Mast And Rigging Gone. And Then, It Is All One Whether He Has Been Happy Or Miserable; For His Life Was Never Anything More Than A Present Moment Always Vanishing; And Now It Is Over.

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

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.

Almost All Of Our Sorrows Spring Out Of Our Relations With Other People.

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

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

Forget Everything

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.

Opinion Is Like A Pendulum And Obeys The Same Law. If It Goes Past The Centre Of Gravity On One Side, It Must Go A Like Distance On The Other; And It Is Only After A Certain Time That It Finds The True Point At Which It Can Remain At Rest.

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.

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

Man Is The Only Animal Who Causes Pain To Others With No Other Object Than Wanting To Do So.

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.

Talent Hits A Target No One Else Can Hit; Genius Hits A Target No One Else Can See.

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.

That Human Life Must Be Some Kind Of Mistake Is Sufficiently Proved By The Simple Observation That Man Is A Compound Of Needs Which Are Hard To Satisfy; That Their Satisfaction Achieves Nothing But A Painless Condition In Which He Is Only Given Over To Boredom . . .

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.

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

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

Politeness Is To Human Nature What Warmth Is To Wax.

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

What Give All That Is Tragic, Whatever Its Form, The Characteristic Of The Sublime, Is The First Inkling Of The Knowledge That The World And Life Can Give No Satisfaction, And Are Not Worth Our Investment In Them. The Tragic Spirit Consists In This. Accordingly It Leads To Resignation.

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.

Time Is That In Which All Things Pass Away.

Time Management

One Should Use Common Words To Say Uncommon Things

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.

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.

Indeed, Intolerance Is Essential Only To Monotheism; An Only God Is By Nature A Jealous God Who Will Not Allow Another To Live. On The Other Hand, Polytheistic Gods Are Naturally Tolerant, They Live And Let Live.

Many Books 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.

With Health, Everything Is A Source Of Pleasure; Without It, Nothing Else, Whatever It May Be, Is Enjoyable...healt H Is By Far The Most Important Element In Human Happiness.

A Word Too Much Always Defeats Its Purpose.

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.

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?

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

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 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.

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

To Free A Man From Error Is To Give, Not To Take Away. Knowledge That A Thing Is False Is A Truth. Error Always Does Harm; Sooner Or Later It Will Bring Mischief To The Man Who Harbors It.

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

If You Want To Know Your True Opinion Of Someone, Watch The Effect Produced In You By The First Sight Of A Letter From Him.

Restlessness Is The Hallmark Of Existence.

The Deep Pain That Is Felt At The Death Of Every Friendly Soul Arises From The Feeling That There Is In Every Individual Something Which Is Inexpressible, Peculiar To Him Alone, And Is, Therefore, Absolutely And Irretrievably Lost.

Unrest Is The Mark Of Existence.

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

It Often Happens That We Blurt Out Things That May In Some Kind Of Way Be Harmful To Us, But We Are Silent About Things That May Make Us Look Ridiculous; Because In This Case Effect Follows Very Quickly On Cause.

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

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.

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

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.

One Man Is More Concerned With The Impression He Makes On The Rest Of Mankind, Another With The Impression The Rest Of Mankind Makes On Him.

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.

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

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.

It Is Only A Man's Own Fundamental Thoughts That Have Truth And Life In Them.

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.

Opinion Is Like A Pendulum And Obeys The Same Law.

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

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.

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

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

Every Original Idea Is First Ridiculed, Then Vigorously Attacked, And Finally Taken For Granted.

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

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.

Solitude Will Be Welcomed Or Endured Or Avoided, According As A Man's Personal Value Is Large Or Small.

Personal Values

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

There Are Three Stages In The Revelation Of Truth. The First Is To Be Ridiculed, The Second Is To Be Resisted And The Third Is To Be Considered Self-evident.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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

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.

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!

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

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.

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

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!

Mostly It Is Loss Which Teaches Us About The Worth Of Things.

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.

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.

A Hedge Between Keeps Friendship Green.

Do Not Shorten The Morning By Getting Up Late; Look Upon It As The Quintessence Of Life, As To A Certain Extent Sacred.

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.

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 First Kind Have Had Thoughts Or Experiences Which Seem To Them Worth Communicating, While The Second Kind Need Money And Consequently Write For Money.

Style Is What Gives Value And Currency To Thoughts.

The First Forty Years Of Our Life Give The Text, The Next Thirty Furnish The Commentary Upon It, Which Enables Us Rightly To Understand The True Meaning And Connection Of The Text With Its Moral And Its Beauties.

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

The Mother Of Useful Arts Is Necessity; That Of The Fine Arts Is Luxury. For Father The Former Has Intellect; The Latter Genius, Which Itself Is A Kind Of Luxury.

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.

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.

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

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, 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?

How Very Paltry And Limited The Normal Human Intellect Is, And How Little Lucidity There Is In The Human Consciousness, May Be Judged From The Fact That, Despite The Ephemeral Brevity Of Human Life, The Uncertainty Of Our Existence And The Countless Enigmas Which Press Upon Us From All Sides, Everyone Does Not Continually And Ceaselessly Philosophize, But That Only The Rarest Of Exceptions Do.

It Is A Clear Gain To Sacrifice Pleasure In Order To Avoid Pain.

There Is No Doubt That Life Is Given Us, Not To Be Enjoyed, But To Be Overcome; To Be Got Over.

The Highest, Most Varied And Lasting Pleasures Are Those Of The Mind.

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

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.

No Doubt, When Modesty Was Made A Virtue, It Was A Very Advantageous Thing For The Fools, For Everybody Is Expected To Speak Of Himself As If He Were One.

Whatever Torch We Kindle, And Whatever Space It May Illuminate, Our Horizon Will Always Remain Encircled By The Depth Of Night.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Poet Presents The Imagination With Images From Life And Human Characters And Situations, Sets Them All In Motion And Leaves Itto The Beholder To Let These Images Take His Thoughts As Far As His Mental Powers Will Permit. This Is Why He Is Able To Engage Men Of The Most Differing Capabilities, Indeed Fools And Sages Together. The Philosopher, On The Other Hand, Presents Not Life Itself But The Finished Thoughts Which He Has Abstracted From It And Then Demands That The Reader Should Think Precisely As, And Precisely As Far As, He Himself Thinks. That Is Why His Public Is So Small.

To Overcome Difficulties Is To Experience The Full Delight Of Existence.

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

It Is, Indeed, Only In Old Age That Intellectual Men Attain Their Sublime Expression, Whilst Portraits Of Them In Their Youth Show Only The First Traces Of It.

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.

Trending Author

Alexander Alekhine

James Whitcomb Riley

Category