Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes

You are right and you're wrong. To use many words to communicate few thoughts is everywhere the unmistakable sign of mediocrity. To gather much thought into few words stamps the man of genius. I constantly saw the false and the bad, and finally the absurd and the senseless, standing in universal admiration and honour. All our wanting comes from needs, thus we continiously suffer. The intellect teaches free will, free from suffering. With health, everything is a source of pleasure; without it, nothing else, whatever it may be, is enjoyable...Healt h is by far the most important element in human happiness. Religion is the metaphysics of the masses. The little honesty that exists among authors is discernible in the unconscionable way they misquote from the writings of others. It is the courage to make a clean breast of it in the face of every question that makes the philosopher. He must be like Sophocles' Oedipus, who, seeking enlightenment concerning his terrible fate, pursues his indefatigable inquiry even though he divines that appalling horror awaits him in the answer. But most of us carry with us the Jocasta in our hearts, who begs Oedipus, for God's sake, not to inquire further. Truth that is naked is the most beautiful, and the simpler its expression the deeper is the impression it makes; this is partly because it gets unobstructed hold of the hearer's mind without his being distracted by secondary thoughts, and partly because he feels that here he is not being corrupted or deceived by the arts of rhetoric, but that the whole effect is got from the thing itself. Any foolish boy can stamp on a beetle, but all the professors in the world cannot make a beetle. Music is the answer to the mystery of life. The most profound of all the arts, It expresses the deepest thoughts of life. To be alone is the fate of all great minds�'a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils. Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom. I owe what is best in my own development to the impression made by Kant's works, the sacred writings of the Hindus, and Plato. Talent is able to achieve what is beyond other people's capacity to achieve, yet not what is beyond their capacity of apprehension; therefore it at once finds its appreciators. The achievement of genius, on the other hand, transcends not only others' capacity of achievement, but also their capacity of apprehension; therefore they do not become immediately aware of it. Talent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like the marksman who hits a target, as far as which others cannot eve If at times I have thought myself unfortunate, it is because of a confusion, an error. I have mistaken myself for someone else... Who am I really? I am the author of The World as Will and Representation, I am the one who has given an answer to the mystery of Being that will occupy the thinkers of future centuries. That is what I am, and who can dispute it in the years of life that still remain for me? If people insist that honor is dearer than life itself, what they really mean is that existence and well-being are as nothing compared with other people's opinions. Of course, this may be only an exaggerated way of stating the prosaic truth that reputation, that is, the opinion others have of us, is indispensable if we are to make any progress in the world. The ultimate foundation of honor is the conviction that moral character is unalterable: a single bad action implies that future actions of the same kind will, under similar circumstances, also be bad. Genius is an intellect that has become unfaithful to its destiny. A man of talent will strive for money and reputation; but the spring that moves genius to the production of its works is not as easy to name A man of genius can hardly be sociable, for what dialogues could indeed be so intelligent and entertaining as his own monologues? There is not a grain of dust, not an atom that can become nothing, yet man believes that death is the annhilation of his being. Nothing in life gives a man so much courage as the attainment or renewal of the conviction that other people regard him with favor; because it means that everyone joins to give him help and protection, which is an infinitely stronger bulwark against the ills of life than anything he can do himself. If there is anything in the world that can really be called a mans property, it is surely that which is the result of his mental activity. Not to go to the theater is like making one's toilet without a mirror. Man shows his character best in trifles. A man may call to mind the face of his friend, but not his own. Here, then, is an initial difficulty in the way of applying the maxim, Know Thyself. Sleep is to a man what winding up is to a clock. Everybody's friend is nobody's. Reason deserves to be called a prophet; for in showing us the consequence and effect of our actions in the present, does it not tell us what the future will be?