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

-Arthur Schopenhauer

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Were An Asiatic To

Arthur Schopenhauer

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

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Exaggeration Of Every Kind Is As Essential To Journalism As It Is To Dramatic Art, For The Object Of Journalism Is To Make Events Go As Far As Possible.

Honour Is External Conscience, And Conscience Is Inward Honour.

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

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.

I Have Described Religion As The Metaphysics Of The People.

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

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

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

The Assumption That Animals Are Without Rights, And The Illusion That Our Treatment Of Them Has No Moral Significance, Is A Positively Outrageous Example Of Western Crudity And Barbarity. Universal Compassion Is The Only Guarantee Of Morality.

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

Never Giving Up

Time Is That In Which All Things Pass Away.

Time Management

Friends And Acquaintances Are The Surest Passport To Fortune.

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 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.

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

The Two Enemies Of Human Happiness Are Pain And Boredom.

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

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.

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

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

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.

The Nobler And More Perfect A Thing Is, The Later And Slower It Is In Arriving At Maturity. A Man Reaches The Maturity Of His Reasoning Powers And Mental Faculties Hardly Before The Age Of Twenty-eight; A Woman At Eighteen.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Personal Courage Is Really A Very Subordinate Virtue-a Virtue, Indeed, In Which We Are Surpassed By The Lower Animals; Or Else You Would Not Hear People Say, As Brave As A Lion.

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.

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

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.

Human Life Must Be Some Form Of Mistake.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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 Happiness Which We Receive From Ourselves Is Greater Than That Which We Obtain From Our Surroundings. . . . The World In Which A Person Lives Shapes Itself Chiefly By The Way In Which He Or She Looks At It.

The Person Who Writes For Fools Is Always Sure Of A Large Audience.

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.

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.

There Is No Doubt That Life Is Given Us, Not To Be Enjoyed, But To Be Overcome; To Be Got Over.

Not To My Contemporaries, Not To My Compatriots But To Mankind I Commit My Now Completed Work In The Confidence That It Will Not Be Without Value For Them, Even If This Should Be Late Recognised, As Is Commonly The Lot Of What Is Good. For It Cannot Have Been For The Passing Generation, Engrossed With The Delusion Of The Moment, That My Mind, Almost Against My Will, Has Uninterruptedly Stuck To Its Work Through The Course Of A Long Life. Preface To The Second Edition Of "the World As Will And Representation

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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

Finding Happiness

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

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

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.

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

Students And Scholars Of All Kinds And Of Every Age Aim, As A Rule, Only At Information, Not Insight. They Make It A Point Of Honour To Have Information About Everything, Every Stone, Plant, Battle, Or Experiment And About All Books, Collectively And Individually. It Never Occurs To Them That Information Is Merely A Means To Insight, But In Itself Is Of Little Or No Value.

The Cause Of Laughter Is Simply The Sudden Perception Of The Incongruity Between A Concept And The Real Project.

Happiness Consists In Frequent Repetition Of Pleasure

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Mensch Kann Tun Was Er Will; Er Kann Aber Nicht Wollen Was Er Will. (one Can Choose What To Do, But Not What To Want.)

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.

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.

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.

Newspapers Are The Second Hand Of History. This Hand, However, Is Usually Not Only Of Inferior Metal To The Other Hands, It Also Seldom Works Properly.

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

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

And Yet, Just As Our Body Would Burst Asunder If The Pressure Of The Atmosphere Were Removed From It, So Would The Arrogance Of Men Expand, If Not To The Point Of Bursting Then To That Of The Most Unbridled Folly, Indeed Madness, If The Pressure Of Want, Toil, Calamity And Frustration Were Removed From Their Life. One Can Even Say That We Require At All Times A Certain Quantity Of Care Or Sorrow Or Want, As A Ship Requires Ballast, In Order To Keep On A Straight Course.

Newspapers Are The Second Hand Of History.

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.

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.

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

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

The Auspices For Philosophy Are Bad If, When Proceeding Ostensibly On The Investigation Of Truth, We Start Saying Farewell To All Uprightness, Honesty And Sincerity, And Are Intent Only On Passing Ourselves Off For What We Are Not. We Then Assume, Like Those Three Sophists [fichte, Schelling And Hegel], First A False Pathos, Then An Affected And Lofty Earnestness, Then An Air Of Infinite Superiority, In Order To Impose Where We Despair Of Ever Being Able To Convince.

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

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.

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.

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

If 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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Scoundrels Are Always Sociable.

Human Condition

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

For Our Improvement We Need A Mirror.

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

A Hedge Between Keeps Friendship Green.

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

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

To Feel Envy Is Human, To Savour Schadenfreude Is Devilish

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

How Entirely Does The Upanishad Breathe Throughout The Holy Spirit Of The Vedas! How Is Every One Who By A Diligent Study Of Its Persian Latin Has Become Familiar With That Incomparable Book Stirred By That Spirit To The Very Depth Of His Soul !

Ist Es An Und Fu? R Sich Absurd, Das Nichtsein Fu? R Einubel Zu ? Halten; Da Jedes Ubel Wie Jedes Gut Das Dasein Zur Voraussetzung Hat, Ja Sogar Das Bewusstsein. It Is In And By Itself Absurd To Regard Non-existence As An Evil; For Every Evil, Like Every Good, Presupposes Existence, Indeed Even Consciousness.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Genuine Contempt, On The Other Hand, Is The Unsullied Conviction Of The Worthlessness Of Another.

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.

Money Is Human Happiness In The Abstract.

Compassion For Animals Is Intimately Associated With Goodness Of Character, And It May Be Confidently Asserted That He Who Is Cruel To Animals Cannot Be A Good Man.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

What A Person Is For Himself, What Abides With Him In His Loneliness And Isolation, And What No One Can Give Or Take Away From Him, This Is Obviously More Essential For Him Than Everything That He Possesses Or What He May Be In The Eyes Of Others.

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.

If You Feel Irritated By The Absurd Remarks Of Two People Whose Conversation You Happen To Overhear, You Should Imagine That You Are Listening To A Dialogue Of Two Fools In A Comedy.

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

A Sense Of Humour Is The Only Divine Quality Of Man

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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?

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

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

I Believe A Person Of Any Fine Feeling Scarcely Ever Sees A New Face Without A Sensation Akin To A Shock, For The Reason That It Presents A New And Surprising Combination Of Unedifying Elements.

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.

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

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

The Fruits Of Christianity Were Religious Wars, Butcheries, Crusades, Inquisitions, Extermination Of The Natives Of America, And The Introduction Of African Slaves In Their Place.

Native American

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Faith Is Like Love: It Does Not Let Itself Be Forced.

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

A High Degree Of Intellect Tends To Make A Man Unsocial.

Reading Is A Mere Makeshift For Original Thinking.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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Whether We Are In A Pleasant Or A Painful State Depends, Finally, Upon The Kind Of Matter That Pervades And Engrosses Our Consciousness And What We Compare It To - Better And We Envious And Sad, Worse And We Feel Grateful And Happy.

Authority And Example Lead The World.

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

Will Minus Intellect Constitutes Vulgarity.

Any Foolish Boy Can Stamp On A Beetle, But All The Professors In The World Cannot Make A Beetle.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Marrying Means Doing Whatever Possible To Become Repulsed Of Each Other

No One Can Transcend Their Own Individuality.

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

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.

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.

Life Is A Business That Does Not Cover The Costs.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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