The cheapest form of pride however is national pride. For it reveals in the one thus afflicted the lack of individual qualities of which he could be proud, while he would not otherwise reach for what he shares with so many millions. He who possesses significant personal merits will rather recognise the defects of his own nation, as he has them constantly before his eyes, most clearly. But that poor blighter who has nothing in the world of which he can be proud, latches onto the last means of being proud, the nation to which he belongs to. Thus he recovers and is now in gratitude ready to defend with hands and feet all errors and follies which are its own.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer in “Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life”
Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become."
- Arthur Schopenhauer in “Counsels and Maxims”
Every nation criticizes every other one — and they are all correct.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer
Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer in "On The Freedom Of The Will” (1839).
We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer as attributed in “Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources” (1899)
A reproach can only hurt if it hits the mark. Whoever knows that he does not deserve a reproach can treat it with contempt.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer in “Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life”
Epicurus, the great teacher of happiness, has correctly and finely divided human needs into three classes. First there are the natural and necessary needs which, if they are not satisfied, cause pain. Consequently, they are only victus et amictus [food and clothing] and are easy to satisfy. Then we have those that are natural yet not necessary, that is, the needs for sexual satisfaction. ... These needs are more difficult to satisfy. Finally, there are those that are neither natural nor necessary, the needs for luxury, extravagance, pomp, and splendour, which are without end and very difficult to satisfy”
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- Arthur Schopenhauer
Compassion is the basis of all morality.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer as quoted in “Thesaurus of Epigrams : A New Classified Collection of Witty Remarks, Bon Mots and Toasts” (1948)
The charlatan takes very different shapes according to circumstances; but at bottom he is a man who cares nothing about knowledge for its own sake, and only strives to gain the semblance of it that he may use it for his own personal ends, which are always selfish and material.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer in “Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
The hazardous part of the business is also the mere possibility, still to be admitted, that the ultimate insight into the nature of things attainable by man, into his very being and that of the world, might not coincide exactly with the doctrines which were in part made known to the former little race of the Jews and in part appeared in Jerusalem eighteen hundred years ago.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer as quoted “Sämtliche Werke”
We should not pretend to be what we are not. The pretence of the impartial investigation of truth, with the resolve to make the established religion the result, indeed the measure and control of truth, is intolerable and such a philosophy, tied to the established religion like a dog to a chain, is only the vexatious caricature of the highest and noblest endeavor of mankind.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer as quoted “Sämtliche Werke”
What now on the other hand makes people sociable is their incapacity to endure solitude and thus themselves."
- Arthur Schopenhauer
Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer in “Counsels and Maxims”
Our moral virtues benefit mainly other people; intellectual virtues, on the other hand, benefit primarily ourselves; therefore the former make us universally popular, the latter unpopular.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer in “Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life”
There are two things which make it impossible to believe that this world is the successful work of an all-wise, all-good, and, at the same time, all-powerful Being; firstly, the misery which abounds in it everywhere; and secondly, the obvious imperfection of its highest product, man, who is a burlesque of what he should be.
- Arthur Schopenhauer in “Studies in Pessimism”
The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom".
- Arthur Schopenhauer in “Personality; or, What a Man Is”
Truth that has been merely learned is like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a waxen nose; at best, like a nose made out of another's flesh; it adheres to us only ‘because it is put on. But truth acquired by thinking of our own is like a natural limb; it alone really belongs to us. This is the fundamental difference between the thinker and the mere man of learning. The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks for himself resemble a fine painting, where the light and shade are correct, the tone sustained, the colour perfectly harmonised; it is true to life. On the other hand, the intellectual attainments of the mere man of learning are like a large palette, full of all sorts of colours, which at most are systematically arranged, but devoid of harmony, connection and meaning.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer in “The Art of Controversy"
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."
- Arthur Schopenhauer in “On Authorship and Style”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer
"Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal world.
Schopenhauer's most influential work, The World as Will and Representation, claimed that the world is fundamentally what humans recognize in themselves as their will. His analysis of will led him to the conclusion that emotional, physical, and sexual desires can never be fully satisfied."
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