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

-Arthur Schopenhauer

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Just As One Spoils

Arthur Schopenhauer

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

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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.

Every Generation, No Matter How Paltry Its Character, Thinks Itself Much Wiser Than The One Immediately Preceding It, Let Alone Those That Are More Remote.

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.

Malebranche Teaches That We See All Things In God Himself. This Is Certainly Equivalent To Explaining Something Unknown By Something Even More Unknown. Moreover, According To Him, We See Not Only All Things In God, But God Is Also The Sole Activity Therein, So That Physical Causes Are So Only Apparently; They Are Merely Occasional Causes. ( Recherches De La Vérité , Livre Vi, Seconde Partie, Chap. 3.) And So Here We Have Essentially The Pantheism Of Spinoza Who Appears To Have Learned More From Malebranche Than From Descartes.

Will Without Intellect Is The Most Vulgar And Common Thing In The World, Possessed By Every Blockhead, Who, In The Gratification Of His Passions, Shows The Stuff Of Which He Is Made.

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.

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.

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.

Truth That Is Naked Is The Most Beautiful, And The Simpler Its Expression The Deeper Is The Impression It Makes; This Is Partly Because It Gets Unobstructed Hold Of The Hearer’s Mind Without His Being Distracted By Secondary Thoughts, And Partly Because He Feels That Here He Is Not Being Corrupted Or Deceived By The Arts Of Rhetoric, But That The Whole Effect Is Got From The Thing Itself.

Intellect Is Invisible To The Man Who Has None.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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Precious Stones

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World Suffering

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Politeness Is To Human Nature What Warmth Is To Wax.

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Life Is A Language In Which Certain Truths Are Conveyed To Us; If We Could Learn Them In Some Other Way, We Should Not Live.

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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.

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Congratulations

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

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

First Impression

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

It Would Be Better If There Were Nothing. Since There Is More Pain Than Pleasure On Earth, Every Satisfaction Is Only Transitory, Creating New Desires And New Distresses, And The Agony Of The Devoured Animal Is Always Far Greater Than The Pleasure Of The Devourer

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Knowledge Is To Certain Extent A Second Existence.

There Is One Respect In Which Beasts Show Real Wisdom... Their Quiet, Placid Enjoyment Of The Present Moment.

[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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Every Satisfaction He Attains Lays The Seeds Of Some New Desire, So That There Is No End To The Wishes Of Each Individual Will.

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.

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

I Have Described Religion As The Metaphysics Of The People.

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.

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.

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.

Honor Means That A Man Is Not Exceptional; Fame, That He Is.

We Should Be Surprised That A Matter That Generally Plays Such An Important Part In The Life Of Man Has Hitherto Been Almost Entirely Disregarded By Philosophers, And Lies Before Us As Raw And Untreated Material.

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

We Can Do What We Wish, But We Can Only Wish What We Must.

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.

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

There Are Two Things Which Make It Impossible To Believe That This World Is The Successful Work Of An All-wise, All-good, And At The Same Time, All-powerful Being; Firstly, The Misery Which Abounds In It Everywhere; And Secondly, The Obvious Imperfection Of Its Highest Product, Man, Who Is A Burlesque Of What He Should Be.

A Man Can Be Himself Only So Long As He Is Alone.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Mankind Cannot Get On Without A Certain Amount Of Absurdity.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Without Books The Development Of Civilization Would Have Been Impossible. They Are The Engines Of Change, Windows On The World, "lighthouses" As The Poet Said "erected In The Sea Of Time." They Are Companions, Teachers, Magicians, Bankers Of The Treasures Of The Mind, Books Are Humanity In Print.

Ignorance Is Degrading Only When Found In Company With Great Riches.

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

A Man Can Surely Do What He Wills To Do, But Cannot Determine What He Wills.

Change Alone Is Eternal, Perpetual, Immortal.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Two Enemies Of Human Happiness Are Pain And Boredom.

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

We Seldom Think Of What We Have But Always Of What We Lack. Therefore, Rather Than Grateful, We Are Bitter.

The Bad Thing About All Religions Is That, Instead Of Being Able To Confess Their Allegorical Nature, They Have To Conceal It.

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

Time Is That In Which All Things Pass Away.

Time Management

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.

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

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

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

A Man's Knowledge May Be Said To Be Mature, In Other Words, When It Has Reached The Most Complete State Of Perfection To Which He, As An Individual, Is Capable Of Bringing It, When An Exact Correspondence Is Established Between The Whole Of His Abstract Ideas And The Things He Has Actually Perceived For Himself. His Will Mean That Each Of His Abstract Ideas Rests, Directly Or Indirectly, Upon A Basis Of Observation, Which Alone Endows It With Any Real Value; And Also That He Is Able To Place Every Observation He Makes Under The Right Abstract Idea Which Belongs To It.

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

Music Is The Melody Whose Text Is The World.

Jedetrennung Gibt Einenvorgeschmack Destodesund Jedes Wiedersehen Einenvorgeschmack Der Auferstehung. Every Parting Is A Foretaste Of Death, And Every Reunion A Foretaste Of Resurrection.

It Is Only In The Microscope That Our Life Looks So Big. It Is An Indivisible Point, Drawn Out And Magnified By The Powerful Lenses Of Time And Space.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

If A Relationship Is Perfectly Natural There Will Be A Complete Fusion Of The Happiness Of Both Of You-owing To Fellow-feeling And Various Other Laws Which Govern Our Natures, This Is, Quite Simply, The Greatest Happiness That Can Exist.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

...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.

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

The Ordinary Method Of Education Is To Imprint Ideas And Opinions, In The Strict Sense Of The Word, Prejudices, On The Mind Of The Child, Before It Has Had Any But A Very Few Particular Observations. It Is Thus That He Afterwards Comes To View The World And Gather Experience Through The Medium Of Those Ready-made Ideas, Rather Than To Let His Ideas Be Formed For Him Out Of His Own Experience Of Life, As They Ought To Be.

Money Is Human Happiness In The Abstract.

It Is Only In The Microscope That Our Life Looks So Big.

Style Is The Physiognomy Of The Mind. It Is More Infallible Than That Of The Body. To Imitate The Style Of Another Is Said To Be Wearing A Mask. However Beautiful It May Be, It Is Through Its Lifelessness Insipid And Intolerable, So That Even The Most Ugly Living Face Is More Engaging.

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.

A Hedge Between Keeps Friendship Green.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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!

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.

No One Can Transcend Their Own Individuality.

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.

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

Any Book, Which Is At All Important, Should Be Reread Immediately

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.

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

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

If People Insist That Honor Is Dearer Than Life Itself, What They Really Mean Is That Existence And Well-being Are As Nothing Compared With Other People's Opinions. Of Course, This May Be Only An Exaggerated Way Of Stating The Prosaic Truth That Reputation, That Is, The Opinion Others Have Of Us, Is Indispensable If We Are To Make Any Progress In The World.

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.

True Brevity Of Expression Consists In A Man Only Saying What Is Worth Saying, While Avoiding All Diffuse Explanations Of Things Which Every One Can Think Out For Himself.

The Eternal Being..., As It Lives In Us, Also Lives In Every Animal.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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!

To Desire Immortality Is To Desire The Eternal Perpetuation Of A Great Mistake

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.

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.

... That When You're Buying Books, You're Optimistically Thinking You're Buying The Time To Read Them. (paraphrase Of Schopenhauer)

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.

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.

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.

Authority And Example Lead The World.

That A God Like Jehovah Should Have Created This World Of Misery And Woe, Out Of Pure Caprice, And Because He Enjoyed Doing It, And Should Then Have Clapped His Hands In Praise Of His Own Work, And Declared Everything To Be Very Good-that Will Not Do At All!

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