Background Image

...

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.

-Arthur Schopenhauer

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

In Order To Increase

Arthur Schopenhauer

...

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.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Arthur Schopenhauer

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.

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

Money Is Human Happiness In The Abstract.

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.

Suicide May Also Be Regarded As An Experiment - A Question Which Man Puts To Nature, Trying To Force Her To Answer. The Question Is This: What Change Will Death Produce In A Man's Existence And In His Insight Into The Nature Of Things? It Is A Clumsy Experiment To Make; For It Involves The Destruction Of The Very Consciousness Which Puts The Question And Awaits The Answer.

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.

It Is Only The Man Whose Intellect Is Clouded By His Sexual Impulse That Could Give The Name Of The Fair Sex To That Undersized, Narrow-shouldered, Broad-hipped, And Short-legged Race.

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

A Man 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.

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.

It Takes Place, By And Large, With The Same Sort Of Necessity As A Tree Brings Forth Fruit, And Demands Of The World No More Than A Soil On Which The Individual Can Flourish.

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

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

Restlessness Is The Hallmark Of Existence.

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.

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.

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

If The Lives Of Men Were Relieved Of All Need, Hardship And Adversity; If Everything They Took In Hand Were Successful, They Would Be So Swollen With Arrogance That, Though They Might Not Burst, They Would Present The Spectacle Of Unbridled Folly-nay, They Would Go Mad. And I May Say, Further, That A Certain Amount Of Care Or Pain Or Trouble Is Necessary For Every Man At All Times. A Ship Without Ballast Is Unstable And Will Not Go Straight.

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.

Mankind Cannot Get On Without A Certain Amount Of Absurdity.

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.

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.

Patriotism Is The Passion Of Fools And The Most Foolish Of Passions.

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

(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.

Time Is That In Which All Things Pass Away.

Time Management

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.

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

Newspapers Are The Second Hand Of History.

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.

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.

Talent Works For Money And Fame; The Motive Which Moves Genius To Productivity Is, On The Other Hand, Less Easy To Determine.

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

Ist Es An Und Fu? R Sich Absurd, Das Nichtsein Fu? R Einubel Zu ? Halten; Da Jedes Ubel Wie Jedes Gut Das Dasein Zur Voraussetzung Hat, Ja Sogar Das Bewusstsein. It Is In And By Itself Absurd To Regard Non-existence As An Evil; For Every Evil, Like Every Good, Presupposes Existence, Indeed Even Consciousness.

When A Man Has Reached A Condition In Which He Believes That A Thing Must Happen Because He Does Not Wish It, And That What He Wishes To Happen Never Will Be, This Is Really The State Called Desperation.

[t]he Moralists Of Europe [have] Pretended That Beasts Have No Rights... A Doctrine Revolting/gross/barbarous... On Which A Native Of The Asiatic Uplands Could Not Look Without Righteous Horror.

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.

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

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.

Reading Is A Mere Makeshift For Original Thinking.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Will Minus Intellect Constitutes Vulgarity.

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.

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.

Treat A Work Of Art Like A Prince. Let It Speak To You First.

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

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.

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.

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.

Nothing In Life Gives A Man So Much Courage As The Attainment Or Renewal Of The Conviction That Other People Regard Him With Favor; Because It Means That Everyone Joins To Give Him Help And Protection, Which Is An Infinitely Stronger Bulwark Against The Ills Of Life Than Anything He Can Do Himself.

Wealth As Well As Sea Water. The More We Drink, The More Thirsty. The So Famous

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

A Poet Or Philosopher Should Have No Fault To Find With His Age If It Only Permits Him To Do His Work Undisturbed In His Own Corner; Nor With His Fate If The Corner Granted Him Allows Of His Following His Vocation Without Having To Think About Other People.

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

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

The Scenes And Events Of Long Ago, And The Persons Who Took Part In Them, Wear A Charming Aspect To The Eye Of Memory, Which Sees Only The Outlines And Takes No Note Of Disagreeable Details. The Present Enjoys No Such Advantage, And So It Always Seems Defective.

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

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.

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

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.

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 Harmonised; It Is True To Life. On The Other Hand, The Intellectual Attainments Of The Mere Man Of Learning Are Like A Large Palette, Full Of All Sorts Of Colours, Which At Most Are Systematically Arranged, But Devoid Of Harmony, Connection And Meaning.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Motives Are Causes Experienced From Within.

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

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.

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.

Ordinary People Merely Think How They Shall 'spend' Their Time; A Man Of Talent Tries To 'use' It.

Just Remember, Once You're Over The Hill You Begin To Pick Up Speed.

Congratulations

One Can Never Read Too Little Of Bad, Or Too Much Of Good Books: Bad Books Are Intellectual Poison; They Destroy The Mind. In Order To Read What Is Good One Must Make It A Condition Never To Read What Is Bad; For Life Is Short, And Both Time And Strength Limited.

To Truth Only A Brief Celebration Of Victory Is Allowed Between The Two Long Periods During Which It Is Condemned As Paradoxical, Or Disparaged As Trivial.

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

Pantheism Is Only A Polite Form Of Atheism.

To Become Reconciled To A Friend With Whom You Have Broken, Is A Form Of Weakness; And You Pay The Penalty Of It When He Takes The First Opportunity Of Doing Precisely The Very Thing Which Brought About The Breach.

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

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

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

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.

We Seldom Speak Of What We Have But Often Of What We Lack.

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

Forget Everything

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

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

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.

Pleasure Is Never As Pleasant As We Expected It To Be And Pain Is Always More Painful. The Pain In The World Always Outweighs The Pleasure. If You Don't Believe It, Compare The Respective Feelings Of Two Animals, One Of Which Is Eating The Other.

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.

This Actual World Of What Is Knowable, In Which We Are And Which Is In Us, Remains Both The Material And The Limit Of Our Consideration.

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 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.

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

To 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

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

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.

Authority And Example Lead The World.

Optimism Is Not Only A False But Also A Pernicious Doctrine, For It Presents Life As A Desirable State And Man's Happiness As Its Aim And Object. Starting From This, Everyone Then Believes He Has The Most Legitimate Claim To Happiness And Enjoyment. If, As Usually Happens, These Do Not Fall To His Lot, He Believes That He Suffers An Injustice, In Fact That He Misses The Whole Point Of His Existence.

Every Nation Ridicules Other Nations, And All Are Right.

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.

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.

Change Alone Is Eternal, Perpetual, Immortal.

Religion Is The Metaphysics Of The Masses.

A Hedge Between Keeps Friendship Green.

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 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.

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.

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.

Reading Is Merely A Surrogate For Thinking For Yourself; It Means Letting Someone Else Direct Your Thoughts. Many Books, Moreover, 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, Which Will Of Course Happen Frequently Enough Even To The Best Heads; But To Banish Your Own Thoughts So As To Take Up A Book Is A Sin Against The Holy Ghost; It Is Like Deserting Untrammeled Nature To Look At A Herbarium Or Engravings Of Landscapes.

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

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.

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

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

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

Everything That Happens, Happens Of Necessity.

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

Everybody's Friend Is Nobody's.

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.

Two Chinamen Visiting Europe Went To The Theatre For The First Time. One Of Them Occupied Himself With Trying To Understand The Theatrical Machinery, Which He Succeeded In Doing. The Other, Despite His Ignorance Of The Language, Sought To Unravel The Meaning Of The Play. The Former Is Like The Astronomer, The Latter The Philosopher.

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.

If At Times I Have Thought Myself Unfortunate, It Is Because Of A Confusion, An Error. I Have Mistaken Myself For Someone Else... Who Am I Really? I Am The Author Of The World As Will And Representation, I Am The One Who Has Given An Answer To The Mystery Of Being That Will Occupy The Thinkers Of Future Centuries. That Is What I Am, And Who Can Dispute It In The Years Of Life That Still Remain For Me?

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

First Impression

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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

Forgive And Forget

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

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

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

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

There Are 80,000 Prostitutes In London Alone And What Are They, If Not Bloody Sacrifices On The Altar Of Monogamy?

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

For An Act To Be Moral The Intention Must Be Based On Compassion, Not Duty. We Do Something Because We Want To Do It, Because We Feel We Have To Do It, Not Because We Ought To Do It. And Even If Our Efforts Fail - Or We Never Even Get To Implement Them - We Are Still Moral Because Our Motivation Was Based On Compassion.

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

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.

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

The Two Enemies Of Human Happiness Are Pain And Boredom.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We Will Gradually Become Indifferent To What Goes On In The Minds Of Other People When We Acquire A Knowledge Of The Superficial Nature Of Their Thoughts, The Narrowness Of Their Views And Of The Number Of Their Errors. Whoever Attaches A Lot Of Value To The Opinions Of Others Pays Them Too Much Honor.

The 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'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.

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.

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

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.

A Man's Delight In Looking Forward To And Hoping For Some Particular Satisfaction Is A Part Of The Pleasure Flowing Out Of It, Enjoyed In Advance. But This Is Afterward Deducted, For The More We Look Forward To Anything The Less We Enjoy It When It Comes.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Music Is The Melody Whose Text Is The World.

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.

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.

A Man Who Has Not Enough Originality To Think Out A New Title For His Book Will Be Much Less Capable Of Giving It New Contents.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Men Are By Nature Merely Indifferent To One Another; But Women Are By Nature Enemies.

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

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.

Trending Author

Bernardo Bertolucci

Category