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There Is Only One Healing Force, And That Is Nature; In Pills And Ointments There Is None. At Most They Can Give The Healing Force Of Nature A Hint About Where There Is Something For It To Do.

-Arthur Schopenhauer

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There Is Only One

Arthur Schopenhauer

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There Is Only One Healing Force, And That Is Nature; In Pills And Ointments There Is None. At Most They Can Give The Healing Force Of Nature A Hint About Where There Is Something For It To Do.

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A Hedge Between Keeps Friendship Green.

Marrying Means Doing Whatever Possible To Become Repulsed Of Each Other

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

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.

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.

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.

Authority And Example Lead The World.

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

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

(politeness Is) A Tacit Agreement That People's Miserable Defects, Whether Moral Or Intellectual, Shall On Either Side Be Ignored And Not Be Made The Subject Of Reproach.

Every New Born Being Indeed Comes Fresh And Blithe Into The New Existence, And Enjoys It As A Free Gift: But There Is, And Can Be, Nothing Freely Given. It's Fresh Existence Is Paid For By The Old Age And Death Of A Worn Out Existence Which Has Perished, But Which Contained The Indestructible Seed Out Of Which The New Existence Has Arisen: They Are One Being.

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

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.

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?

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?

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

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

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

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

Happiness Consists In Frequent Repetition Of Pleasure

A Happy Life Is Impossible; The Best That A Man Can Attain Is A Heroic Life.

To Be Shocked At How Deeply Rejection Hurts Is To Ignore What Acceptance Involves. We Must Never Allow Our Suffering To Be Compounded By Suggestions That There Is Something Odd In Suffering So Deeply. There Would Be Something Amiss If We Didn't.

The Present Is The Only Reality And The Only Certainty.

If A Person Is Stupid, We Excuse Him By Saying That He Cannot Help It; But If We Attempted To Excuse In Precisely The Same Way The Person Who Is Bad, We Should Be Laughed At.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

We Should Comfort Ourselves With The Masterpieces Of Art As With Exalted Personages-stand Quietly Before Them And Wait Till They Speak To Us.

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

Universal Compassion Is The Only Guarantee Of Morality.

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

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.

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 Brut First Knows Death When It Dies, But Man Draws Consciously Nearer To It Every Hour That He Lives; And This Makes His Life At Times A Questionable Good Even To Him Who Has Not Recognised This Character Of Constant Anaihilation In The Whole Of Life.

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

The Shortness Of Life, So Often Lamented, May Be The Best Thing About It.

A Writer Should Never Be Brief At The Expense Of Being Clear.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

It Is Difficult To Find Happiness Within Oneself, But It Is Impossible To Find It Anywhere Else.

Finding Happiness

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.

There Is Only One Healing Force, And That Is Nature; In Pills And Ointments There Is None. At Most They Can Give The Healing Force Of Nature A Hint About Where There Is Something For It To Do.

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.

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

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

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

If A Man Sets Out To Hate All The Miserable Creatures He Meets, He Will Not Have Much Energy Left For Anything Else; Whereas He Can Despise Them, One And All, With The Greatest Ease.

A Great Affliction Of All Philistines Is That Idealities Afford Them No Entertainment, But To Escape From Boredom They Are Always In Need Of Realities.

To Gain Anything We Have Longed For Is Only To Discover How Vain And Empty It Is; And Even Though We Are Always Living In Expectation Of Better Things, At The Same Time We Often Repent And Long To Have The Past Back Again.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Each Day Is A Little Life.

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

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

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

Style Is What Gives Value And Currency To Thoughts.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Restlessness Is The Hallmark Of Existence.

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

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 . . .

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

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

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

The Universe Is A Dream Dreamed By A Single Dreamer Where All The Dream Characters Dream Too.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

It Is Not What Things Are Objectively And In Themselves, But What They Are For Us, In Our Way Of Looking At Them, That Makes Us Happy Or The Reverse.

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.

Whoever Heard Me Assert That The Grey Cat Playing Just Now In The Yard Is The Same One That Did Jumps And Tricks There Five Hundred Years Ago Will Think Whatever He Likes Of Me, But It Is A Stranger Form Of Madness To Imagine That The Present-day Cat Is Fundamentally An Entirely Different One.

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

The Ultimate Foundation Of Honor Is The Conviction That Moral Character Is Unalterable: A Single Bad Action Implies That Future Actions Of The Same Kind Will, Under Similar Circumstances, Also Be Bad.

Life Is A Constant Process Of Dying.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The Conviction That The World And Man Is Something That Had Better Not Have Been, Is Of A Kind To Fill Us With Indulgence Towards One Another.

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

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.

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

A Sense Of Humour Is The Only Divine Quality Of Man

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

No One Writes Anything Worth Writing, Unless He Writes Entirely For The Sake Of His Subject.

Time Is That In Which All Things Pass Away.

Time Management

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Women Remain Children All Their Lives, For They Always See Only What Is Near At Hand, Cling To The Present, Take The Appearance Of A Thing For Reality, And Prefer Trifling Matters To The Most Important.

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

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.

Anyone Can Squash A Bug But All Professors Of This World Couldn't Build One.

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.

The Fly Ought To Be Used As The Symbol Of Impertinence And Audacity; For Whilst All Other Animals Shun Man More Than Anything Else, And Run Away Even Before He Comes Near Them, The Fly Lights Upon His Very Nose.

When You Look Back On Your Life, It Looks As Though It Were A Plot, But When You Are Into It, It's A Mess: Just One Surprise After Another. Then, Later, You See It Was Perfect.

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.

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

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

If There Is Anything In The World That Can Really Be Called A Man's Property, It Is Surely That Which Is The Result Of His Mental Activity.

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

One Man Is More Concerned With The Impression He Makes On The Rest Of Mankind, Another With The Impression The Rest Of Mankind Makes On Him.

To Feel Envy Is Human, To Savour Schadenfreude Is Devilish

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

The Beard, Being A Half-mask, Should Be Forbidden By The Police - It Is, Moreover, As A Sexual Symbol In The Middle Of The Face, Obscene: That Is Why It Pleases Women.

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.

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

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.

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

World Suffering

Das Ganze Der Erfahrung Gleicht Einer Geheimschrift Und Die Philosophie Der Entzifferung Derselben. The Whole Of Experience Is Like A Cryptograph, And Philosophy Is Like The Deciphering Of It.

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

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.

Every Human Perfection Is Linked To An Error Which It Threatens To Turn Into

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

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

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.

Scoundrels Are Always Sociable.

Human Condition

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

Congratulations

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.

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

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

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

Happiness And Love

If We Suspect That A Man Is Lying, We Should Pretend To Believe Him; For Then He Becomes Bold And Assured, Lies More Vigorously, And Is Unmasked.

Every Human Perfection Is Allied To A Defect Into Which It Threatens To Pass, But It Is Also True That Every Defect Is Allied To A Perfection.

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

For Our Improvement We Need A Mirror.

The Intellectual Attainments Of A Man Who Thinks For Himself Resemble A Fine Painting, Where The Light And Shade Are Correct, The Tone Sustained, The Colour Perfectly Harmonised; It Is True To Life. On The Other Hand, The Intellectual Attainments Of The Mere Man Of Learning Are Like A Large Palette, Full Of All Sorts Of Colours, Which At Most Are Systematically Arranged, But Devoid Of Harmony, Connection And Meaning.

There Are Three Stages In The Revelation Of Truth. The First Is To Be Ridiculed, The Second Is To Be Resisted And The Third Is To Be Considered Self-evident.

What A Man Can Do And Suffer Is Unknown To Himself Till Some Occasion Presents Itself Which Draws Out The Hidden Power. Just As One Sees Not In The Water Of An Unruffled Pond The Fury And Roar With Which It Can Dash Down A Steep Rock Without Injury To Itself, Or How High It Is Capable Of Rising; Or As Little As One Can Suspect The Latent Heat In Ice-cold Water.

No Doubt, When Modesty Was Made A Virtue, It Was A Very Advantageous Thing For The Fools, For Everybody Is Expected To Speak Of Himself As If He Were One.

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

Sexual Passion Is The Cause Of War And The End Of Peace, The Basis Of What Is Serious... And Consequently The Concentration Of All Desire

It Is With Trifles, And When He Is Off Guard, That A Man Best Reveals His Character.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Compassion Is The Basis Of Morality.

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

The Little Incidents And Accidents Of Every Day Fill Us With Emotion, Anxiety, Annoyance, Passion, As Long As They Are Close To Us, When They Appear So Big, So Important, So Serious; But As Soon As They Are Borne Down The Restless Stream Of Time They Lose What Significance They Had; We Think No More Of Them And Soon Forget Them Altogether. They Were Big Only Because They Were Near.

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.

A Pessimist Is An Optimist In Full Possession Of The Facts.

The Old Woman Dies, The Burden Is Lifted.

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.

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.

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

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

Forget Everything

Do Not Shorten The Morning By Getting Up Late, Or Waste It In Unworthy Occupations Or In Talk; Look Upon It As The Quintessence Of Life, As To A Certain Extent Sacred. Evening Is Like Old Age: We Are Languid, Talkative, Silly. 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.

[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.

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.

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!

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

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Macaulay Culkin

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