Every woman while she would be ready to die of shame if surprised in the act of generation, nonetheless carries her pregnancy… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones; for life is short, and… — 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
Every parting gives a foretaste of death; every remeeting a foretaste of the resurrection. That is why even people who are indifferent… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
All pantheism must ultimately be shipwrecked on the inescapable demands of ethics, and then on the evil and suffering of the world.… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
A reproach can only hurt if it hits the mark. Whoever knows that he does not deserve a reproach can treat it… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
If the lives of men were relieved of all need, hardship and adversity; if everything they took in hand were successful, they… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
The auspices for philosophy are bad if, when proceeding ostensibly on the investigation of truth, we start saying farewell to all uprightness,… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
To buy books would be a good thing if we could also buy the time to read them; but the purchase of… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
If at times I have thought myself unfortunate, it is because of a confusion, an error. I have mistaken myself for someone… — 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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
[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 Image
The eternal being..., as it lives in us, also lives in every animal. — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
“[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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image