The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him. — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
“Evil is just what is positive; it makes its own existence felt.” — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence. — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
Life to the great majority is only a constant struggle for mere existence, with the certainty of losing it at last. — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
Human existence is an error...it is bad today and every day it gets worse, until the worst happens. — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
This world could not have been the work of an all-loving being, but that of a devil, who had brought creatures into… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
If life — the craving for which is the very essence of our being — were possessed of any positive intrinsic value,… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
Every state of welfare, every feeling of satisfaction, is negative in its character; that is to say, it consists in freedom from… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
Optimism is not only a false but also a pernicious doctrine, for it presents life as a desirable state and man's happiness… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
How very paltry and limited the normal human intellect is, and how little lucidity there is in the human consciousness, may be… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
A man finds himself, to his great astonishment, suddenly existing, after thousands and thousands of years of non-existence: he lives for a… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
If people insist that honor is dearer than life itself, what they really mean is that existence and well-being are as nothing… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
In order to increase his pleasures, man has intentionally added to the number and pressure of his needs, which in their original… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
Consciousness makes the individual careful to maintain his own existence; and if this were not so, there would be no surety for… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
“In fact, the balance wheel which maintains in motion the watch of metaphysics that never runs down, is the clear knowledge that… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
“What is more, in fact, we very soon look upon the world as something whose non-existence is not only conceivable, but even… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
“When you consider how great and immediate is the problem of existence, this ambiguous, tormented, fleeting, dream-like existence - so great and… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
“Human life must be some kind of mistake. The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only remember that man… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
The vanity of existence is revealed in the whole form existence assumes: in the infiniteness of time and space contrasted with the… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
Ist es an und fu? r sich absurd, das Nichtsein fu? r einUbel zu ? halten; da jedes Ubel wie jedes Gut… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
Every new born being indeed comes fresh and blithe into the new existence, and enjoys it as a free gift: but there… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment - a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to answer.… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
The actual life of a thought lasts only until it reaches the point of speech...As soon as our thinking has found words… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
“But he will fear least to become nothing in death who has recognized that he is already nothing now, and who consequently… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
There is only one inborn erroneous notion that we exist in order to be happy So long as we persist in this… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
Virtue is as little to be acquired by learning as genius; nay, the idea is barren, and is only to be employed as an… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share
“In accordance with such zeal, by reducing the external world to a matter of faith, he wanted merely to open a little door for… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share
That human life must be some kind of mistake is sufficiently proved by the simple observation that man is a compound of needs which… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share
“Imitation and custom are the spring of almost all human action. The cause of it is that men fight shy of all and any… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share
[T]he appropriate form of address between man and man ought to be, not monsieur, sir, but fellow sufferer, compagnon de miseres. — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share
The eternal being..., as it lives in us, also lives in every animal. — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share
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… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share
It is not what things are objectively and in themselves, but what they are for us, in our way of looking at them, that… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share
“[Materialism] seeks the primary and most simple state of matter, and then tries to develop all the others from it; ascending from mere mechanism,… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share
In order to increase his pleasures, man has intentionally added to the number and pressure of his needs, which in their original state were… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share
“For the will, as that which is common to all, is for that reason also common: consequently, every vehement emergence of will is common,… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share
“Alles Urdenken geschieht in Bildern: darum ist die Phantasie ein so nothwendiges Werkzeug desselben, und werden phantasielose Köpfe nie etwas Großes leisten, - es… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share
“In travelling where novelties of all kinds press in upon us, mental food is often supplied so rapidly from without that there is no… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share
