Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer

Philosopher

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimistic philosophy and the concept of the 'will to live,' particularly in 'The World as Will and Representation.'

Men Philosophical Thinking World People Book
Born
February 22, 1788
Died
September 21, 1860
Quotes
571
Rank
#56

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Arthur Schopenhauer quotes (page 28 of 29)

571 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

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"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."

Frustration Men Order
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"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."

Perfection Pessimism Defects
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"The general history of art and literature shows that the highest achievements of the human mind are, as a rule, not favourably received at first."

Art Achievement Mind
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"Gaiety alone, as it were, is the hard cash of happiness; everything else is just a promissory note."

Happiness And Love Cash Notes
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"The first rule for a good style is to have something to say; in fact, this in itself is almost enough."

Writing Style Firsts
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"A reproach can only hurt if it hits the mark. Whoever knows that he does not deserve a reproach can treat it with contempt."

Hurt Doe Treats
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"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."

Sad Men Animal
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"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."

Real Evil Boredom
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"If at any moment Time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the miseries of boredom."

Hands Boredom Misery
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"A man shows his character just in the way in which he deals with trifles, for then he is off his guard."

Character Men Way
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"We should comfort ourselves with the masterpieces of art as with exalted personages-stand quietly before them and wait till they speak to us."

Art Waiting Comfort
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"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."

Powerful Voice Miracle
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"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."

Self Three Firsts
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"He who writes carelessly confesses thereby at the very outset that he does not attach much importance to his own thoughts."

Writing Doe Importance
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"Descartes is rightly regarded as the father of modern philosophy primarily and generally because he helped the faculty of reason to stand on its own feet by teaching men to use their brains in place whereof the Bible, on the one hand, and Aristotle, on the other, had previously served."

Father Philosophy Teaching
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"If God made this world, then i would not want to be the God. It is full of misery and distress that it breaks my heart."

Heart World Want
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"It is, indeed, only in old age that intellectual men attain their sublime expression, whilst portraits of them in their youth show only the first traces of it."

Men Expression Intellectual
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"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."

Cheating Writing Two
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"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."

Character Men Firsts
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"Poetry is related to philosophy as experience is related to empirical science. Experience makes us acquainted with the phenomenon in the particular and by means of examples, science embraces the whole of phenomena by means of general conceptions. So poetry seeks to make us acquainted with the Platonic Ideas through the particular and by means of examples. Philosophy aims at teaching, as a whole and in general, the inner nature of things which expresses itself in these. One sees even here that poetry bears more the character of youth, philosophy that of old age."

Philosophy Teaching Character
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