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Arthur Schopenhauer

42 quotes

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) was a German philosopher best known for his work *The World as Will and Representation*. His philosophy, which emphasized the role of human desire and will as the driving force behind suffering, deeply influenced later thinkers including Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein.

“To live alone is the fate of all great souls.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Alone

All Quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

“Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Art

“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.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Age

“To live alone is the fate of all great souls.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Alone

“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 than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Knowledge

“Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Death

“With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Great

“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.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

History

“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.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Truth

“Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Freedom

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit Genius hits a target no one else can see.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Intelligence

“The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Knowledge

“Hatred is an affair of the heart contempt that of the head.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Anger

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Truth

“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.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Death

“Money is human happiness in the abstract he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Happiness

“Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Sympathy

“Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another but women are by nature enemies.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Men

“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.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Death

“Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Nature

“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.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Truth