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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.

-Arthur Schopenhauer

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The Inexpressible Depth Of

Arthur Schopenhauer

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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.

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More From Arthur Schopenhauer

There Are Very Few Who Can Think, But Every Man Wants To Have An Opinion; And What Remains But To Take It Ready-made From Others, Instead Of Forming Opinions For Himself?

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.

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

To Read A Book Is To Hold An Entire World In The Palm Of Your Hand. That World Is Unique To You; No Two Readers Can Ever Inhabit The Same World

A Hedge Between Keeps Friendship Green.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Every Parting Gives A Foretaste Of Death; Every Remeeting A Foretaste Of The Resurrection. That Is Why Even People Who Are Indifferent To Each Other Rejoice So Much If They Meet Again After Twenty Or Thirty Years Of Separation.

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

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.

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.

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

The Business Of The Novelist Is Not To Relate Great Events, But To Make Small Ones Interesting.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Boredom Is Just The Reverse Side Of Fascination.

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

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.

This World Could Not Have Been The Work Of An All-loving Being, But That Of A Devil, Who Had Brought Creatures Into Existence In Order To Delight In The Sight Of Their Sufferings.

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

Memory Works Like The Collection Glass In The Camera Obscura: It Gathers Everything Together And Therewith Produces A Far More Beautiful Picture Than Was Present Originally.

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

Forgive And Forget

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.

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.

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

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

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?

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

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

Reading Is Equivalent To Thinking With Someone Else's Head Instead Of With One's Own.

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

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.

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.

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

Will Minus Intellect Constitutes Vulgarity.

The Progress Of Life Shows A Man The Stuff Of Which He Is Made.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 . . .

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

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

Many Books 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.

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.

A Man's Face As A Rule Says More, And More Interesting Things, Than His Mouth, For It Is A Compendium Of Everything His Mouth Will Ever Say, In That It Is The Monogram Of All This Man's Thoughts And Aspirations.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Unrest Is The Mark Of Existence.

Talent Is Able To Achieve What Is Beyond Other People's Capacity To Achieve, Yet Not What Is Beyond Their Capacity Of Apprehension; Therefore It At Once Finds Its Appreciators. The Achievement Of Genius, On The Other Hand, Transcends Not Only Others' Capacity Of Achievement, But Also Their Capacity Of Apprehension; Therefore They Do Not Become Immediately Aware Of It. Talent Is Like The Marksman Who Hits A Target Which Others Cannot Reach; Genius Is Like The Marksman Who Hits A Target, As Far As Which Others Cannot Even See.

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.

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

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

In Youth It Is The Outward Aspect Of Things That Most Engages Us; While In Age, Thought Or Reflection Is The Predominating Qualityof The Mind. Hence, Youth Is The Time For Poetry, And Age Is More Inclined To Philosophy. In Practical Affairs It Is The Same: A Man Shapes His Resolutions In Youth More By The Impression That The Outward World Makes Upon Him; Whereas, When He Is Old, It Is Thought That Determines His Actions.

Alle Befriedigung, Oder Was Man Gemeinhin Glu« Ck Nennt, Ist Eigentlich Und Wesentlich Immer Nur Negativ Und Durchaus Nie Positiv. All Satisfaction, Or What Iscommonlycalled Happiness, Is Really And Essentially Always Negative Only, And Never Positive.

He Who Does Not Enjoy Solitude Will Not Love Freedom.

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

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

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.

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

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

A Man Of Correct Insight Among Those Who Are Duped And Deluded Resembles One Whose Watch Is Right While All The Clocks In The Town Give The Wrong Time.

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

Every Genius Is A Great Child; He Gazes Out At The World As Something Strange, A Spectacle, And Therefore With Purely Objective Interest

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

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

Rascals Are Always Sociable, More's The Pity! And The Chief Sign That A Man Has Any Nobility In His Character Is The Little Pleasure He Takes In Others' Company.

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

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

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

Newspapers Are The Second Hand Of History.

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

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.

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

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.

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

In The Whole World There Is No Study So Beneficial And So Elevating As That Of The Upanishads. It Has Been The Solace Of My Life, It Will Be The Solace Of My Death.

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

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.

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.

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

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

In Their Hearts Women Think That It Is Men's Business To Earn Money And Theirs To Spend It.

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.

The Truth Can Wait, For It Lives A Long 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.

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

If, While Hurrying Ostensibly To The Temple Of Truth, We Hand The Reins Over To Our Personal Interests Which Look Aside At Very Different Guiding Stars, For Instance At The Tastes And Foibles Of Our Contemporaries, At The Established Religion, But In Particular At The Hints And Suggestions Of Those At The Head Of Affairs, Then How Shall We Ever Reach The High, Precipitous, Bare Rock Whereon Stands The Temple Of Truth?

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

History Is The Long, Difficult And Confused Dream Of Mankind.

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.

A Man Finds Himself, To His Great Astonishment, Suddenly Existing, After Thousands And Thousands Of Years Of Non-existence: He Lives For A Little While; And Then, Again, Comes An Equally Long Period When He Must Exist No More. The Heart Rebels Against This, And Feels That It Cannot Be True.

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

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

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.

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.

Restlessness Is The Hallmark Of Existence.

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.

To Free A Man From Error Is To Give, Not To Take Away. Knowledge That A Thing Is False Is A Truth. Error Always Does Harm; Sooner Or Later It Will Bring Mischief To The Man Who Harbors It.

Everything That Happens, Happens Of Necessity.

A Word Too Much Always Defeats Its Purpose.

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 First Kind Have Had Thoughts Or Experiences Which Seem To Them Worth Communicating, While The Second Kind Need Money And Consequently Write For Money.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

A Man Who Has No Mental Needs, Because His Intellect Is Of The Narrow And Normal Amount, Is, In The Strict Sense Of The Word, What Is Called A Philistine.

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.

Time Is That In Which All Things Pass Away.

Time Management

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.

Happiness Belongs To Those Who Are Sufficient Unto Themselves. For All External Sources Of Happiness And Pleasure Are, By Their Very Nature, Highly Uncertain, Precarious, Ephemeral And Subject To Chance.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Happiness And Love

Life Is A Constant Process Of Dying.

Reasonable And Vicious Are Quite Consistent With Each Other, In Fact, Only Through Their Union Are Great And Far-reaching Crimes Possible

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

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.

Authority And Example Lead The World.

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.

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.

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

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

What Disturbs And Depresses Young People Is The Hunt For Happiness On The Firm Assumption That It Must Be Met With In Life. From This Arises Constantly Deluded Hope And So Also Dissatisfaction. Deceptive Images Of A Vague Happiness Hover Before Us In Our Dreams, And We Search In Vain For Their Original. Much Would Have Been Gained If, Through Timely Advice And Instruction, Young People Could Have Had Eradicated From Their Minds The Erroneous Notion That The World Has A Great Deal To Offer Them.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Intellect Is Invisible To The Man Who Has None.

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

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.

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

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

Never Giving Up

It Is Only The Hope Of What Is Claimed That Begets And Nurishes The Wish.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Indeed, Intolerance Is Essential Only To Monotheism; An Only God Is By Nature A Jealous God Who Will Not Allow Another To Live. On The Other Hand, Polytheistic Gods Are Naturally Tolerant, They Live And Let Live.

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

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.

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.

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.

All Pantheism Must Ultimately Be Shipwrecked On The Inescapable Demands Of Ethics, And Then On The Evil And Suffering Of The World. If The World Is A Theophany , Then Everything Done By Man, And Even By Animal, Is Equally Divine And Excellent; Nothing Can Be More Censurable And Nothing More Praiseworthy Than Anything Else; Hence There Is No Ethics.

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

For The Purpose Of Acquiring Gain, Everything Else Is Pushed Aside Or Thrown Overboard, For Example, As Is Philosophy By The Professors Of Philosophy.

Religion Is The Metaphysics Of The Masses.

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

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 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.

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

Human Life Must Be Some Form Of Mistake.

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

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

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

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

World Suffering

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

Every Nation Ridicules Other Nations, And All Are Right.

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.

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.

To Use Many Words To Communicate Few Thoughts Is Everywhere The Unmistakable Sign Of Mediocrity. To Gather Much Thought Into Few Words Stamps The Man Of Genius.

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

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

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.

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