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Nature Shows That With The Growth Of Intelligence Comes Increased Capacity For Pain, And It Is Only With The Highest Degree Of Intelligence That Suffering Reaches Its Supreme Point.

-Arthur Schopenhauer

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Nature Shows That With

Arthur Schopenhauer

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Nature Shows That With The Growth Of Intelligence Comes Increased Capacity For Pain, And It Is Only With The Highest Degree Of Intelligence That Suffering Reaches Its Supreme Point.

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World Suffering

More From Arthur Schopenhauer

Truth Is Most Beautiful Undraped.

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

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

Every Nation Ridicules Other Nations, And All Are Right.

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

Pride Is An Established Conviction Of One’s Own Paramount Worth In Some Particular Respect, While Vanity Is The Desire Of Rousing Such A Conviction In Others, And It Is Generally Accompanied By The Secret Hope Of Ultimately Coming To The Same Conviction Oneself. Pride Works From Within; It Is The Direct Appreciation Of Oneself. Vanity Is The Desire To Arrive At This Appreciation Indirectly, From Without.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Life Swings Like A Pendulum Backward And Forward Between Pain And Boredom.

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

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.

Music Is The Melody Whose Text Is The World.

Just As The Largest Library, Badly Arranged, Is Not So Useful As A Very Moderate One That Is Well Arranged, So The Greatest Amount Of Knowledge, If Not Elaborated By Our Own Thoughts, Is Worth Much Less Than A Far Smaller Volume That Has Been Abundantly And Repeatedly Thought Over.

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.

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

World Suffering

Do Not Shorten The Morning By Getting Up Late; Look Upon It As The Quintessence Of Life, As To A Certain Extent Sacred.

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.

Happiness Consists In Frequent Repetition Of Pleasure

The Actual Life Of A Thought Lasts Only Until It Reaches The Point Of Speech...as Soon As Our Thinking Has Found Words It Ceases To Be Sincere...when It Begins To Exist In Others It Ceases To Live In Us, Just As The Child Severs Itself From Its Mother When It Enters Into Its Own Existence.

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.

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

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.

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

He Who Does Not Enjoy Solitude Will Not Love Freedom.

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

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

Newspapers Are The Second Hand Of History.

For What Is Modesty But Hypocritical Humility, By Means Of Which, In A World Swelling With Vile Envy, A Man Seeks To Beg Pardon For His Excellences And Merits From Those Who Have None? For Whoever Attributes No Merit To Himself Because He Really Has None Is Not Modest, But Merely Honest.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Religion Is The Metaphysics Of The Masses.

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.

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.

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.

How Very Paltry And Limited The Normal Human Intellect Is, And How Little Lucidity There Is In The Human Consciousness, May Be Judged From The Fact That, Despite The Ephemeral Brevity Of Human Life, The Uncertainty Of Our Existence And The Countless Enigmas Which Press Upon Us From All Sides, Everyone Does Not Continually And Ceaselessly Philosophize, But That Only The Rarest Of Exceptions Do.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Universal Compassion Is The Only Guarantee Of Morality.

It Is A Wise Thing To Be Polite; Consequently, It Is A Stupid Thing To Be Rude. To Make Enemies By Unnecessary And Willful Incivility, Is Just As Insane A Proceeding As To Set Your House On Fire. For Politeness Is Like A Counter--an Avowedly False Coin, With Which It Is Foolish To Be Stingy.

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.

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

A Man 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.

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.

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

Authority And Example Lead The World.

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.

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

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.

I Observed Once To Goethe That When A Friend Is With Us We Do Not Think The Same Of Him As When He Is Away. He Replied, "yes! Because The Absent Friend Is Yourself, And He Exists Only In Your Head; Whereas The Friend Who Is Present Has An Individuality Of His Own, And Moves According To Laws Of His Own, Which Cannot Always Be In Accordance With Those Which You Form For Yourself.

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

Something Better

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

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.

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

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

Of All The Intellectual Faculties, Judgment Is The Last To Mature. A Child Under The Age Of Fifteen Should Confine Its Attention Either To Subjects Like Mathematics, In Which Errors Of Judgment Are Impossible, Or To Subjects In Which They Are Not Very Dangerous, Like Languages, Natural Science, History, Etc.

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

The Mother Of Useful Arts Is Necessity; That Of The Fine Arts Is Luxury. For Father The Former Has Intellect; The Latter Genius, Which Itself Is A Kind Of Luxury.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Wealth Is Like Sea-water; The More We Drink, The Thirstier We Become; And The Same Is True Of Fame.

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

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.

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

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.

If A Man Wants To Read Good Books, He Must Make A Point Of Avoiding Bad Ones; For Life Is Short, And Time And Energy Limited.

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

We Deceive And Flatter No One By Such Delicate Artificies As We Do Our Own Selves.

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.

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

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 !

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.

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

In Early Youth, As We Contemplate Our Coming Life, We Are Like Children In A Theatre Before The Curtain Is Raised, Sitting There In High Spirits And Eagerly Waiting For The Play To Begin. It Is A Blessing That We Do Not Know What Is Really Going To Happen. Could We Foresee It, There Are Times When Children Might Seem Like Innocent Prisoners, Condemned, Not To Death, But To Life, And As Yet All Unconscious Of What Their Sentence Means.

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

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

Personal Values

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 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.

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

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

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.

Materialism Is The Philosophy Of The Subject Who Forgets To Take Account Of Himself.

The Man Who Goes Up In A Balloon Does Not Feel As If He Were Ascending; He Only Sees The Earth Sinking Deeper Below Him.

For Whence Did Dante Take The Materials For His Hell But From This Our Actual World? And Yet He Made A Very Proper Hell Of It.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

He Who Can See Truly In The Midst Of General Infatuation Is Like A Man Whose Watch Keeps Good Time, When All Clocks In The Town In Which He Lives Are Wrong. He Alone Knows The Right Time; What Use Is That To Him?

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.

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.

One Should Use Common Words To Say Uncommon Things

Vedas Are The Most Rewarding And The Most Elevating Book Which Can Be Possible In The World.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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

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

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.

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.

A Hedge Between Keeps Friendship Green.

The Two Enemies Of Human Happiness Are Pain And Boredom.

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

The Law Of Simplicity And Naïveté Applies To All Fine Art, For It Is Compatible With What Is Most Sublime.

To Buy Books Would Be A Good Thing If We Could Also Buy The Time To Read Them; But The Purchase Of Books Is Often Mistaken For The Assimilation And Mastering Of Their Contents.

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

Every 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.

If Children Were Brought Into The World By An Act Of Pure Reason Alone, Would The Human Race Continue To Exist? Would Not A Man Rather Have So Much Sympathy With The Coming Generation As To Spare It The Burden Of Existence, Or At Any Rate Not Take It Upon Himself To Impose That Burden Upon It In Cold Blood?

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

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

Pantheism Is Only A Polite Form Of Atheism.

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

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

Style Is What Gives Value And Currency To Thoughts.

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

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.

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

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.

I've Never Known Any Trouble Than An Hour's Reading Didn't Assuage.

The Faculty For Remembering Is Not Diminished In Proportion To What One Has Learnt, Just As Little As The Number Of Moulds In Which You Cast Sand Lessens Its Capacity For Being Cast In New Moulds.

The Word Of Man Is The Most Durable Of All Material.

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

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

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

Life Is A Constant Process Of Dying.

Gaiety Alone, As It Were, Is The Hard Cash Of Happiness; Everything Else Is Just A Promissory Note.

Happiness And Love

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Genius Is To Other Gifts What The Carbuncle Is To The Precious Stones. It Sends Forth Its Own Light, Whereas Other Stones Only Reflect Borrowed Light.

Precious Stones

If Two Men Who Were Friends In Their Youth Meet Again When They Are Old, After Being Separated For A Life-time, The Chief Feeling They Will Have At The Sight Of Each Other Will Be One Of Complete Disappointment At Life As A Whole; Because Their Thoughts Will Be Carried Back To That Earlier Time When Life Seemed So Fair As It Lay Spread Out Before Them In The Rosy Light Of Dawn, Promised So Much — And Then Performed So Little.

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

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.

All The Cruelty And Torment Of Which The World Is Full Is In Fact Merely The Necessary Result Of The Totality Of The Forms Under Which The Will To Live Is Objectified.

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

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.

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

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

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!

Every State Of Welfare, Every Feeling Of Satisfaction, Is Negative In Its Character; That Is To Say, It Consists In Freedom From Pain, Which Is The Positive Element Of Existence.

First The Truth Is Ridiculed. Then It Meets Outrage. Then It Is Said To Have Been Obvious All Along.

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

The First Forty Years Of Life Give Us The Text; The Next Thirty Supply The Commentary On It.

Mostly The Loss Teaches Us Only About The Value Of Things.

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

If God Made The World, I Would Not Be That God, For The Misery Of The World Would Break My Heart.

There Are, First Of All, Two Kinds Of Authors: Those Who Write For The Subject's Sake, And Those Who Write For Writing's Sake. ... The Truth Is That When An Author Begins To Write For The Sake Of Covering Paper, He Is Cheating The Reader; Because He Writes Under The Pretext That He Has Something To Say.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

How Is It Possible That Suffering That Is Neither My Own Nor Of My Concern Should Immediately Affect Me As Though It Were My Own, And With Such Force That Is Moves Me To Action?

If You Want To Know Your True Opinion Of Someone, Watch The Effect Produced In You By The First Sight Of A Letter From Him.

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

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

Nature Shows That With The Growth Of Intelligence Comes Increased Capacity For Pain, And It Is Only With The Highest Degree Of Intelligence That Suffering Reaches Its Supreme Point.

World Suffering

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.

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

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