Q - Arthur Schopenhauer
Posted on 14th March 2021
Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 - 1860 was a German philosopher. He has often been called the 'philosopher of pessimism'.
‘Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see’
‘It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain’
‘To live alone is the fate of all great souls’
‘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’
‘Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect’
‘We seldom think of what we have, but always of what we lack’
‘The more intelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him’
‘All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident’
‘If we were not all so interested in ourselves life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it’
‘After your death you will be what you were before your birth’
‘Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude’
‘Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own’
‘Compassion is the basis of morality’
‘Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax’
‘To buy books would be a good thing if we could also buy the time to read them’
‘We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people’
‘Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal’
‘The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind, the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity’
‘Will power to the mind is like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see’
‘The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time’
‘Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world’
‘The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom’
‘With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy’
‘The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for’
‘It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us’
‘Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies’
‘Fame is something that must be won. Honour is something that must not be lost’
‘The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped’
Share this post: