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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.

-Arthur Schopenhauer

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The Faculty For Remembering

Arthur Schopenhauer

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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.

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National Character Is Only Another Name For The Particular Form Which The Littleness, Perversity And Baseness Of Mankind Take In Every Country. Every Nation Mocks At Other Nations, And All Are Right.

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?

It Is Only A Man's Own Fundamental Thoughts That Have Truth And Life In Them. For It Is These That He Really And Completely Understands. To Read The Thoughts Of Others Is Like Taking The Remains Of Someone Else's Meal, Like Putting On The Discarded Clothes Of A Stranger.

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

Sleep Is The Interest We Have To Pay On The Capital Which Is Called In At Death; And The Higher The Rate Of Interest And The More Regularly It Is Paid, The Further The Date Of Redemption Is Postponed.

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

Men Are A Thousand Times More Intent On Becoming Rich Than On Acquiring Culture, Though It Is Quite Certain That What A Man Is Contributes More To His Happiness Than What He Has.

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.

Our Civilized World Is Nothing But A Great Masquerade. You Encounter Knights, Parsons, Soldiers, Doctors, Lawyers, Priests, Philosophers And A Thousand More: But They Are Not What They Appear - They Are Merely Masks... Usually, As I Say, There Is Nothing But Industrialists, Businessmen And Speculators Concealed Behind All These Masks.

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.

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

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

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.

You Can Do What You Will, But In Any Given Moment Of Your Life You Can Will Only One Definite Thing And Absolutely Nothing Other Than That One Thing.

Absolutely Nothing

The Animal Lacks Both Anxiety And Hope Because Its Consciousness Is Restricted To What Is Clearly Evident And Thus To The Present Moment: The Animal Is The Present Incarnate.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Whoever Wants His Judgment To Be Believed, Should Express It Coolly And Dispassionately; For All Vehemence Springs From The Will. And So The Judgment Might Be Attributed To The Will And Not To Knowledge, Which By Its Nature Is Cold.

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.

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

Forget Everything

Money Is Human Happiness In The Abstract; He, Then, Who Is No Longer Capable Of Enjoying Human Happiness In The Concrete Devotes Himself Utterly To Money.

[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.

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

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

Congratulations

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

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.

Honor Has Not To Be Won; It Must Only Not Be Lost.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Happiness Consists In Frequent Repetition Of Pleasure

We May Divide Thinkers Into Those Who Think For Themselves And Those Who Think Through Others. The Latter Are The Rule And The Former The Exception. The First Are Original Thinkers In A Double Sense, And Egotists In The Noblest Meaning Of The Word.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

No One Can Transcend Their Own Individuality.

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.

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.

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

To Feel Envy Is Human, To Savour Schadenfreude Is Devilish

What People Commonly Call Fate Is Mostly Their Own Stupidity.

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

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

Compassion Is The Basis Of Morality.

It Is, Indeed, Only In Old Age That Intellectual Men Attain Their Sublime Expression, Whilst Portraits Of Them In Their Youth Show Only The First Traces Of It.

Style Is What Gives Value And Currency To Thoughts.

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.

Boredom Is Just The Reverse Side Of Fascination.

For It Is A Matter Of Daily Observation That People Take The Greatest Pleasure In That Which Satisfies Their Vanity; And Vanity Cannot Be Satisfied Without Comparison With Others.

Unrest Is The Mark Of Existence.

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

Not To Go To The Theater Is Like Making One's Toilet Without A Mirror.

The Greatest Achievements Of The Human Mind Are Generally Received With Distrust.

Never Giving Up

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.

Genius Is An Intellect That Has Become Unfaithful To Its Destiny.

Newspapers Are The Second Hand Of History.

He Who Does Not Enjoy Solitude Will Not Love Freedom.

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

Human Life Must Be Some Form Of Mistake.

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

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.

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

Animals Learn Death First At The Moment Of Death;...man Approaches Death With The Knowledge It Is Closer Every Hour, And This Creates A Feeling Of Uncertainty Over His Life, Even For Him Who Forgets In The Business Of Life That Annihilation Is Awaiting Him. It Is For This Reason Chiefly That We Have Philosophy And Religion.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Marrying Means Doing Whatever Possible To Become Repulsed Of Each Other

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

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 Truth Can Wait, For It Lives A Long Life.

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

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.

Whatever Torch We Kindle, And Whatever Space It May Illuminate, Our Horizon Will Always Remain Encircled By The Depth Of Night.

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

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

One Should Use Common Words To Say Uncommon Things

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scoundrels Are Always Sociable.

Human Condition

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.

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

Means At Our Disposal Should Be Regarded As A Bulwark Against The Many Evils And Misfortunes That Can Occur. We Should Not Regard Such Wealth As A Permission Or Even An Obligation To Procure For Ourselves The Pleasures Of The World.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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

Something Better

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

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.

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

Life Without Pain Has No Meaning.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

I Constantly Saw The False And The Bad, And Finally The Absurd And The Senseless, Standing In Universal Admiration And Honour.

To Attain Something Desired Is To Discover How Vain It Is; And…though We Live All Our Lives In Expectation Of Better Things, We Often At The Same Time Long Regretfully For What Is Past. The Present, On The Other Hand, Is Regarded As Something Quite Temporary And Serving Only As The Road To Our Goal. That Is Why Most Men Discover When They Look Back On Their Life That They Have The Whole Time Been Living Ad Interim, And Are Surprised To See That Which They Let Go By So Unregarded And Unenjoyed Was Precisely Their Life, Was Precisely In Expectation Of Which They Lived.

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

The Reason Domestic Pets Are So Lovable And So Helpful To Us Is Because They Enjoy, Quietly And Placidly, The Present Moment.

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.

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

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.

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

Motives Are Causes Experienced From Within.

Each Day Is A Little Life: Every Waking And Rising A Little Birth, Every Fresh Morning A Little Youth, Every Going To Rest And Sleep A Little Death.

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

Mankind Cannot Get On Without A Certain Amount Of Absurdity.

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.

It Is A Curious Fact That In Bad Days We Can Very Vividly Recall The Good Time That Is Now No More; But That In Good Days, We Have Only A Very Cold And Imperfect Memory Of The Bad.

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

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.

Hatred Is An Affair Of The Heart; Contempt That Of The Head.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

The Young Should Early Be Trained To Bear Being Left Alone; For It Is A Source Of Happiness And Peace Of Mind.

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

In Our Monogamous Part Of The World, To Marry Means To Halve One's Rights And Double One's Duties.

There Is No Opinion, However Absurd, Which Men Will Not Readily Embrace As Soon As They Can Be Brought To The Conviction That It Is Generally Adopted.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Intellect Is Invisible To The Man Who Has None.

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

First Impression

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.

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.

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.

Noise Is The Most Impertinent Of All Forms Of Interruption. It Is Not Only An Interruption, But Also A Disruption Of Thought.

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

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

It Is The Courage To Make A Clean Breast Of It In The Face Of Every Question That Makes The Philosopher. He Must Be Like Sophocles' Oedipus, Who, Seeking Enlightenment Concerning His Terrible Fate, Pursues His Indefatigable Inquiry Even Though He Divines That Appalling Horror Awaits Him In The Answer. But Most Of Us Carry With Us The Jocasta In Our Hearts, Who Begs Oedipus, For God's Sake, Not To Inquire Further.

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.

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.

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.

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

All Truth Passes Through Three Stages. First, It Is Ridiculed. Second, It Is Violently Opposed. Third, It Is Accepted As Being Self-evident.

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

I Am Often Surprised By The Cleverness, And Now And Again By The Stupidity, Of My Dog; And I Have Similar Experiences With Mankind.

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

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

Great Minds Are Related To The Brief Span Of Time During Which They Live As Great Buildings Are To A Little Square In Which They Stand: You Cannot See Them In All Their Magnitude Because You Are Standing Too Close To Them.

The 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.

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!

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 . . .

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

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.

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

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

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

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

You Must Treat A Work Of Art Like A Great Man: Stand Before It And Wait Patiently Till It Deigns To Speak.

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.

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.

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

Life Is A Constant Process Of Dying.

Money Is Human Happiness In The Abstract.

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