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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.

-Arthur Schopenhauer

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Happiness Belongs To Those

Arthur Schopenhauer

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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.

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

As The Strata Of The Earth Preserve In Succession The Living Creatures Of Past Epochs, So The Shelves Of Libraries Preserve In Succession The Errors Of The Past And Their Expositions, Which Like The Former Were Very Lively And Made A Great Commotion In Their Own Age But Now Stand Petrified And Stiff In A Place Where Only The Literary Palaeontologist Regards Them.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Time Is That In Which All Things Pass Away.

Time Management

A Pessimist Is An Optimist In Full Possession Of The Facts.

For The World Is Hell, And Men Are On The One Hand The Tormented Souls And On The Other The Devils In It.

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

A Man Of Business Will Often Deceive You Without The Slightest Scruple, But He Will Absolutely Refuse To Commit A Theft.

The General History Of Art And Literature Shows That The Highest Achievements Of The Human Mind Are, As A Rule, Not Favourably Received At First.

A Good Supply Of Resignation Is Of The First Importance In Providing For The Journey Of Life.

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

What People Commonly Call Fate Is Mostly Their Own Stupidity.

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?

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

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

A High Degree Of Intellect Tends To Make A Man Unsocial.

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

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.

Nothing Shocks Our Moral Feelings So Deeply As Cruelty Does. We Can Forgive Every Other Crime, But Not Cruelty. The Reason For This Is That It Is The Very Opposite Of Compassion.

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

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

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.

Man Shows His Character Best In Trifles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 Must Have Grown Old And Lived Long In Order To See How Short Life Is.

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.

Life Without Pain Has No Meaning.

The World Is Not A Factory And Animals Are Not Products For Our Use

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!

Our Civilized World Is Nothing But A Great Masquerade. You Encounter Knights, Parsons, Soldiers, Doctors, Lawyers, Priests, Philosophers And A Thousand More: But They Are Not What They Appear - They Are Merely Masks... Usually, As I Say, There Is Nothing But Industrialists, Businessmen And Speculators Concealed Behind All These Masks.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

We See In Tragedy The Noblest Men, After A Long Conflict And Suffering, Finally Renounce Forever All The Pleasure Of Life And The Aims Till Then Pursued So Keenly, Or Cheerfully And Willingly Give Up Life Itself.

Wicked Thoughts And Worthless Efforts Gradually Set Their Mark On The Face, Especially The Eyes.

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!

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

Reading Is A Mere Makeshift For Original Thinking.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Memory Should Be Specially Taxed In Youth, Since It Is Then That It Is Strongest And Most Tenacious. But In Choosing The Things That Should Be Committed To Memory The Utmost Are And Forethought Must Be Exercised; As Lessons Well Learnt In Youth Are Never Forgotten.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Every Possession And Every Happiness Is But Lent By Chance For An Uncertain Time, And May Therefore Be Demanded Back The Next Hour.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Poetry Is Related To Philosophy As Experience Is Related To Empirical Science. Experience Makes Us Acquainted With The Phenomenon In The Particular And By Means Of Examples, Science Embraces The Whole Of Phenomena By Means Of General Conceptions. So Poetry Seeks To Make Us Acquainted With The Platonic Ideas Through The Particular And By Means Of Examples. Philosophy Aims At Teaching, As A Whole And In General, The Inner Nature Of Things Which Expresses Itself In These. One Sees Even Here That Poetry Bears More The Character Of Youth, Philosophy That Of Old Age.

The Old Woman Dies, The Burden Is Lifted.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

The Two Enemies Of Human Happiness Are Pain And Boredom.

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.

In The Blessings As Well As In The Ills Of Life, Less Depends Upon What Befalls Us Than Upon The Way In Which It Is Met.

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

Everything That Happens, Happens Of Necessity.

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

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.

The Truth Can Wait, For It Lives A Long Life.

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.

It Is Difficult To Keep Quiet If You Have Nothing To Do

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.

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.

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

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

We Forfeit Three-quarters Of Ourselves In Order To Be Like Other People.

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.

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

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

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

Boredom Is An Evil That Is Not To Be Estimated Lightly. It Can Come In The End To Real Despair. The Public Authority Takes Precautions Against It Everywhere, As Against Other Universal Calamities.

Great Minds Are Related To The Brief Span Of Time During Which They Live As Great Buildings Are To A Little Square In Which They Stand: You Cannot See Them In All Their Magnitude Because You Are Standing Too Close To Them.

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

One Should Use Common Words To Say Uncommon Things

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

Music Is The Melody Whose Text Is The World.

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.

Marrying Means Doing Whatever Possible To Become Repulsed Of Each Other

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.

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.

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.

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

Imagination Is Strong In A Man When That Particular Function Of The Brain Which Enables Him To Observe Is Roused To Activity Without Any Necessary Excitement Of The Sense. Accordingly, We Find That Imagination Is Active Just In Proportion As Our Sense Are Not Excited By External Objects. A Long Period Of Solitude, Whether In Prison Or In A Sick Room; Quiet, Twilight, Darkness-these Are The Things That Promote Its Activity; And Under Their Influence It Comes Into Play Of Itself.

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

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.

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

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

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.

A Man Finds Himself, To His Great Astonishment, Suddenly Existing, After Thousands And Thousands Of Years Of Non-existence: He Lives For A Little While; And Then, Again, Comes An Equally Long Period When He Must Exist No More. The Heart Rebels Against This, And Feels That It Cannot Be True.

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

(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.

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.

A Man Can Be Himself Only So Long As He Is Alone; And If He Does Not Love Solitude, He Will Not Love Freedom; For It Is Only When He Is Alone That He Is Really Free.

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.

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

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

Man May Have The Most Excellent Judgment In All Other Matters, And Yet Go Wrong In Those Which Concern Himself; Because Here The Will Comes In And Deranges The Intellect At Once. Therefore Let A Man Take Counsel Of A Friend. A Doctor Can Cure Everyone But Himself; If He Falls Ill, He Sends For A Colleague.

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

Human Existence Is An Error...it Is Bad Today And Every Day It Gets Worse, Until The Worst Happens.

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

First Impression

If We Were Not All So Interested In Ourselves, Life Would Be So Uninteresting That None Of Us Would Be Able To Endure It.

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

Truth Is No Harlot Who Throws Her Arms Round The Neck Of Him Who Does Not Desire Her; On The Contrary, She Is So Coy A Beauty That Even The Man Who Sacrifices Everything To Her Can Still Not Be Certain Of Her Favors.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

If There Is Anything In The World That Can Really Be Called A Man's Property, It Is Surely That Which Is The Result Of His Mental Activity.

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

Every Time A Man Is Begotten And Born, The Clock Of Human Life Is Wound Up Anew To Repeat Once More Its Same Old Tune That Has Already Been Played Innumerable Times, Movement By Movement And Measure By Measure, With Insignificant Variations.

Friends And Acquaintances Are The Surest Passport To Fortune.

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.

We May Divide Thinkers Into Those Who Think For Themselves And Those Who Think Through Others. The Latter Are The Rule And The Former The Exception. The First Are Original Thinkers In A Double Sense, And Egotists In The Noblest Meaning Of The Word.

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

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.

Religion Is The Metaphysics Of The Masses.

Will Minus Intellect Constitutes Vulgarity.

Philosophy ... Is A Science, And As Such Has No Articles Of Faith; Accordingly, In It Nothing Can Be Assumed As Existing Except What Is Either Positively Given Empirically, Or Demonstrated Through Indubitable Conclusions.

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

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

Life Is A Task To Be Done. It Is A Fine Thing To Say Defunctus Est; It Means That The Man Has Done His Task.

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

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

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.

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.)

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

Forget Everything

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

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

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?

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

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.

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

It Is Difficult, If Not Impossible, To Define The Limit Of Our Reasonable Desires In Respect Of Possessions.

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

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

Necessity Is The Constant Scourge Of The Lower Classes, Ennui Of The Higher Ones.

...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.

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

The Life Of Every Individual Is Really Always A Tragedy, But Gone Through In Detail, It Has The Character Of A Comedy.

The Art Of Not Reading Is A Very Important One. It Consists In Not Taking An Interest In Whatever May Be Engaging The Attention Of The General Public At Any Particular Time. When Some Political Or Ecclesiastical Pamphlet, Or Novel, Or Poem Is Making A Great Commotion, You Should Remember That He Who Writes For Fools Always Finds A Large Public. A Precondition For Reading Good Books Is Not Reading Bad Ones: For Life Is Short.

Every Man Takes The Limits Of His Own Field Of Vision For The Limits Of The World. This Is An Error Of The Intellect As Inevitable As That Error Of The Eye Which Lets You Fancy That On The Horizon Heaven And Earth Meet.

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

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.

Restlessness Is The Hallmark Of Existence.

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

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.

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.

Compassion For Animals Is Intimately Associated With Goodness Of Character, And It May Be Confidently Asserted That He Who Is Cruel To Animals Cannot Be A Good Man.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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