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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!

-Arthur Schopenhauer

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Hence, In All Countries

Arthur Schopenhauer

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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!

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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.

For An Author To Write As He Speaks Is Just As Reprehensible As The Opposite Fault, To Speak As He Writes; For This Gives A Pedantic Effect To What He Says, And At The Same Time Makes Him Hardly Intelligible.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Honour Is External Conscience, And Conscience Is Inward Honour.

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

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

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

Scoundrels Are Always Sociable.

Human Condition

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Everything That Happens, Happens Of Necessity.

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.

Wir Tappen Im Labyrinth Unsers Lebenswandels Und Im Dunkel Unserer Forschungen Umher: Helleaugenblicke Erleuchten Dabei Wie Blitze Unsernweg. We Grope About In The Labyrinth Of Our Life And In The Obscurity Of Our Investigations; Bright Moments Illuminate Our Path Like Flashes Of Lightning.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This World Could Not Have Been The Work Of An All-loving Being, But That Of A Devil, Who Had Brought Creatures Into Existence In Order To Delight In The Sight Of Their Sufferings.

With People Of Limited Ability Modesty Is Merely Honesty. But With Those Who Possess Great Talent It Is Hypocrisy.

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

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.

I Have Not Yet Spoken My Last Word About Women. I Believe That If A Woman Succeeds In Withdrawing From The Mass, Or Rather Raising Herself From Above The Mass, She Grows Ceaselessly And More Than A Man.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

What People Commonly Call Fate Is Mostly Their Own Stupidity.

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.

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

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

If A Man Sets Out To Hate All The Miserable Creatures He Meets, He Will Not Have Much Energy Left For Anything Else; Whereas He Can Despise Them, One And All, With The Greatest Ease.

Every Parting Gives A Foretaste Of Death, Every Reunion A Hint Of The Resurrection.

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 Problem With Germans Is That They Look In The Clouds For What Lies At Their Feet.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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Something Better

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

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.

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.

Will Minus Intellect Constitutes Vulgarity.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Buying Books Would Be A Good Thing If One Could Also Buy The Time To Read Them In: But As A Rule The Purchase Of Books Is Mistaken For The Appropriation Of Their Contents.

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

The Cause Of Laughter Is Simply The Sudden Perception Of The Incongruity Between A Concept And The Real Project.

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.

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.

No One Can Transcend Their Own Individuality.

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

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 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.

Life Without Pain Has No Meaning.

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.

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.

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.

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

Reading Is Equivalent To Thinking With Someone Else's Head Instead Of With One's Own.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Style Is What Gives Value And Currency To Thoughts.

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

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

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

Boredom Is Just The Reverse Side Of Fascination.

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

The Old Woman Dies, The Burden Is Lifted.

There Is No Absurdity So Palpable But That It May Be Firmly Planted In The Human Head If You Only Begin To Inculcate It Before The Age Of Five, By Constantly Repeating It With An Air Of Great Solemnity.

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.

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.

All Religions Promise A Reward Beyond Life, In Eternity, For Excellences Of The Will Or Heart, But None For Excellences Of The Head Or Understanding.

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.

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

Religion Is The Metaphysics Of The Masses.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Money Is Human Happiness In The Abstract.

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Politeness Is To Human Nature What Warmth Is To Wax.

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.)

The Weakness Of Their Reasoning Faculty Also Explains Why Women Show More Sympathy For The Unfortunate Than Men;... And Why, On The Contrary, They Are Inferior To Men As Regards Justice, And Less Honourable And Conscientious.

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

A Word Too Much Always Defeats Its Purpose.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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. It Is A Blessing That We Do Not Know What Is Really Going To Happen. Could We Foresee It, There Are Times When Children Might Seem Like Innocent Prisoners, Condemned, Not To Death, But To Life, And As Yet All Unconscious Of What Their Sentence Means.

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.

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

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

Alent Is Like The Marksman Who Hits A Target Which Others Cannot Reach; Genius Is Like The Marksman Who Hits A Target, As Far As Which Others Cannot Even See.

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.

Life Is A Business That Does Not Cover The Costs.

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.

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!

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

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

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.

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.

Something Of Great Importance Now Past Is Inferior To Something Of Little Importance Now Present, In That The Latter Is A Reality, And Related To The Former As Something To Nothing.

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

In Truth The Most Striking Figure For The Relation Of The Two Is That Of The Strong Blind Man Carrying The Sighted Lame Man On His Shoulders.

The Greatest Wisdom Is To Make The Enjoyment Of The Present The Supreme Object Of Life; Because That Is The Only Reality, All Else Being Merely The Play Of Thought. On The Other Hand, Such A Course Might Just As Well Be Called The Greatest Folly: For That Which In The Next Moment Exists No More, And Vanishes Utterly, Like A Dream, Can Never Be Worth A Serious Effort.

Knowledge Is To Certain Extent A Second Existence.

Talent Is Able To Achieve What Is Beyond Other People's Capacity To Achieve, Yet Not What Is Beyond Their Capacity Of Apprehension; Therefore It At Once Finds Its Appreciators. The Achievement Of Genius, On The Other Hand, Transcends Not Only Others' Capacity Of Achievement, But Also Their Capacity Of Apprehension; Therefore They Do Not Become Immediately Aware Of It. Talent Is Like The Marksman Who Hits A Target Which Others Cannot Reach; Genius Is Like The Marksman Who Hits A Target, As Far As Which Others Cannot Even See.

There Is No Vice Of Which A Man Can Be Guilty, No Meanness, No Shabbiness, No Unkindness, Which Excites So Much Indignation Among His Contemporaries, Friends And Neighbours, As His Success. This Is The One Unpardonable Crime, Which Reason Cannot Defend, Nor Humility Mitigate.

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.

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.

The Intellectual Attainments Of A Man Who Thinks For Himself Resemble A Fine Painting, Where The Light And Shade Are Correct, The Tone Sustained, The Colour Perfectly Hamonized; It Is True To Life.

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

The Composer Reveals The Innermost Nature Of The World, And Expresses The Profoundest Wisdom In A Language That His Reasoning Faculty Does Not Understand, Just As A Magnetic Somnambulist Gives Information About Things Of Which She Has No Conception When She Is Awake. Therefore In The Composer, More Than In Any Other Artist, The Man Is Entirely Separate And Distinct From The Artist.

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

Finding Happiness

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.

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

Every Woman While She Would Be Ready To Die Of Shame If Surprised In The Act Of Generation, Nonetheless Carries Her Pregnancy Without A Trace Of Shame And Indeed With A Kind Of Pride. The Reason Is That Pregnancy Is In A Certain Sense A Cancellation Of The Guilt Incurred By Coitus; Thus Coitus Bears All The Shame And Disgrace Of The Affair, While Pregnancy, Which Is So Intimately Associated With It, Stays Pure And Innocent And Is Indeed To Some Extent Sacred.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

The Beard, Being A Half-mask, Should Be Forbidden By The Police - It Is, Moreover, As A Sexual Symbol In The Middle Of The Face, Obscene: That Is Why It Pleases Women.

Obstinacy Is The Result Of The Will Forcing Itself Into The Place Of The Intellect.

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

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

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.

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

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

Personal Values

One Should Use Common Words To Say Uncommon Things

Every Hero Is A Samson. The Strong Man Succumbs To The Intrigues Of The Weak And The Many; And If In The End He Loses All Patience He Crushes Both Them And Himself.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

At The Age Of Five Years To Enter A Spinning-cotton Or Other Factory, And From That Time Forth To Sit There Daily, First Ten, Then Twelve, And Ultimately Fourteen Hours, Performing The Same Mechanical Labour, Is To Purchase Dearly The Satisfaction Of Drawing Breath. But This Is The Fate Of Millions, And That Of Millions More Is Analogous To It.

Every Nation Ridicules Other Nations, And All Are Right.

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