Background Image

...

I Have Long Held The Opinion That The Amount Of Noise That Anyone Can Bear Undisturbed Stands In Inverse Proportion To His Mental Capacity And Therefore Be Regarded As A Pretty Fair Measure Of It.

-Arthur Schopenhauer

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Have Long Held

Arthur Schopenhauer

...

I Have Long Held The Opinion That The Amount Of Noise That Anyone Can Bear Undisturbed Stands In Inverse Proportion To His Mental Capacity And Therefore Be Regarded As A Pretty Fair Measure Of It.

Views: 10

Topic

More From Arthur Schopenhauer

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

It Is 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.

...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.

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

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.

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

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

World Suffering

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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 Than A Much Smaller Amount If You Have Not Thought It Over For Yourself.

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

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.

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 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.

Physics Is Unable To Stand On Its Own Feet, But Needs A Metaphysics On Which To Support Itself, Whatever Fine Airs It May Assume Towards The Latter.

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.

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

Restlessness Is The Hallmark Of Existence.

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.

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

The Fourfold Root Of The Principle Of Sufficent Reason Is "anything Perceived Has A Cause. All Conclusions Have Premises. All Effects Have Causes. All Actions Have Motives.

In 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.

Man Shows His Character Best In Trifles.

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.

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

Unrest Is The Mark Of Existence.

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.

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 Opinion, However Absurd, Which Men Will Not Readily Embrace As Soon As They Can Be Brought To The Conviction That It Is Generally Adopted.

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

There Is More To Be Learnt From Every Page Of David Hume Than From The Collected Philosophical Works Of Hegel, Herbart, And Schleiermacher Are Taken Together.

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

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

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.

Newspapers Are The Second Hand Of History.

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.

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

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.

Human Life, Like All Inferior Goods, Is Covered On The Outside With A False Glitter; What Suffers Always Conceals Itself.

In Reading, The Mind Is, In Fact, Only The Playground Of Another's Thoughts.

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.

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.

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

Boredom Is Just The Reverse Side Of Fascination: Both Depend On Being Outside Rather Than Inside A Situation, And One Leads To The Other.

What Now On The Other Hand Makes People Sociable Is Their Incapacity To Endure Solitude And Thus Themselves.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Vengeance Taken Will Often Tear The Heart And Torment The Conscience.

They Tell Us That Suicide Is The Greatest Piece Of Cowardice... That Suicide Is Wrong; When It Is Quite Obvious That There Is Nothing In The World To Which Every Man Has A More Unassailable Title Than To His Own Life And Person.

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.

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.

Honor Means That A Man Is Not Exceptional; Fame, That He Is. Fame Is Something Which Must Be Won; Honor, Only Something Which Must Not Be Lost.

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.

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

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.

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.

To Call The World God Is Not To Explain It; It Is Only To Enrich Our Language With A Superfluous Synonym.

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.

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

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.

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

Faith Is Like Love, It Cannot Be Forced. Therefore It Is A Dangerous Operation If An Attempt Be Made To Introduce Or Bind It By State Regulations; For, As The Attempt To Force Love Begets Hatred, So Also To Compel Religious Belief Produces Rank Unbelief.

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.

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

Music Is The Answer To The Mystery Of Life. The Most Profound Of All The Arts, It Expresses The Deepest Thoughts Of Life.

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

Truth Is Most Beautiful Undraped.

What People Commonly Call Fate Is Mostly Their Own Stupidity.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

I Have Long Held The Opinion That The Amount Of Noise That Anyone Can Bear Undisturbed Stands In Inverse Proportion To His Mental Capacity And Therefore Be Regarded As A Pretty Fair Measure Of It.

It Is Only At The First Encounter That A Face Makes Its Full Impression On Us.

First Impression

No Greater Mistake Can Be Made Than To Imagine That What Has Been Written Latest Is Always The More Correct; That What Is Written Later On Is An Improvement On What Was Written Previously; And That Every Change Means Progress.

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.

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.

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

Finding Happiness

A Book Can Never Be Anything More Than The Impression Of Its Author’s Thoughts. The Value Of These Thoughts Lies Either In The Matter About Which He Has Thought, Or In The Form In Which He Develops His Matter — That Is To Say, What He Has Thought About It.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

I Believe That When Death Closes Our Eyes We Shall Awaken To A Light, Of Which Our Sunlight Is But The Shadow.

Rudeness Is Better Than Any Argument; It Totally Eclipses Intellect.

How Entirely Does The Upanishad Breathe Throughout The Holy Spirit Of The Vedas! How Is Every One Who By A Diligent Study Of Its Persian Latin Has Become Familiar With That Incomparable Book Stirred By That Spirit To The Very Depth Of His Soul !

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

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

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

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

Something Better

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.

A Hedge Between Keeps Friendship Green.

Music Is The Melody Whose Text Is The World.

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.

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

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

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.

For, As You Know, Religions Are Like Glow-worms; They Shine Only When It Is Dark.

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

First Impression

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.

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.

Pantheism Is Only A Polite Form Of Atheism.

To Form A Judgment Intuitively Is The Privilege Of Few; Authority And Example Lead The Rest Of The World. They See With The Eyes Of Others, They Hear With The Ears Of Others. Therefore It Is Very Easy To Think As All The World Now Think; But To Think As All The World Will Think Thirty Years Hence Is Not In The Power Of Every One.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Universal Compassion Is The Only Guarantee Of Morality.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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

Genuine Contempt, On The Other Hand, Is The Unsullied Conviction Of The Worthlessness Of Another.

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.

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

Native American

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

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

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.

Politeness Is To Human Nature What Warmth Is To Wax.

Friends And Acquaintances Are The Surest Passport To Fortune.

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.

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

The Man Never Feels The Want Of What It Never Occurs To Him To Ask For.

To Forgive And Forget Means To Throw Away Dearly Bought Experience.

Forgive And Forget

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.

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.

I Have Described Religion As The Metaphysics Of The People.

Change Alone Is Eternal, Perpetual, Immortal.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Astrology Furnishes A Splendid Proof Of The Contemptible Subjectivity Of Men In Consequence Whereof They Refer Everything To Themselves And From Every Idea At Once Go Straight Back To Themselves. Astrology Refers The Course Of Celestial Bodies To The Miserable Ego; It Also Establishes A Connection Between The Comets In Heaven And The Squabbles And Rascalities On Earth.

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

What Makes People Hard-hearted Is This, That Each Man Has, Or Fancies He Has, As Much As He Can Bear In His Own Troubles.

Every New Born Being Indeed Comes Fresh And Blithe Into The New Existence, And Enjoys It As A Free Gift: But There Is, And Can Be, Nothing Freely Given. It's Fresh Existence Is Paid For By The Old Age And Death Of A Worn Out Existence Which Has Perished, But Which Contained The Indestructible Seed Out Of Which The New Existence Has Arisen: They Are One Being.

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

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

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.

Our Moral Virtues Benefit Mainly Other People; Intellectual Virtues, On The Other Hand, Benefit Primarily Ourselves; Therefore The Former Make Us Universally Popular, The Latter Unpopular.

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 Two Enemies Of Human Happiness Are Pain And Boredom.

To Conceal A Want Of Real Ideas, Many Make For Themselves An Imposing Apparatus Of Long Compound Words, Intricate Flourishes And Phrases, New And Unheard-of Expressions, All Of Which Together Furnish An Extremely Difficult Jargon That Sounds Very Learned. Yet With All This They Say-precisely Nothing.

Money Alone Is Absolutely Good, Because It Is Not Only A Concrete Satisfaction Of One Need In Particular; It Is An Abstract Satisfaction Of All.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Opinion Is Like A Pendulum And Obeys The Same Law.

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

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

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.

Happiness Consists In Frequent Repetition Of Pleasure

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

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.

Thus Also Every Keen Pleasure Is An Error And An Illusion, For No Attained Wish Can Give Lasting Satisfaction.

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.

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.

Trending Author

Alexis Arguello

Richard Dean Anderson

Category