Here are some of the most powerful quotes from the thought-provoking German philosopher Schopenhauer on love and happiness, freedom and solitude, art and humor, life and death, suffering, and more.
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1. “Truth that is naked is the most beautiful, and the simpler its expression the deeper is the impression it makes.”
2. “Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.”
3. “In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theater before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin.”
4. “Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts.”
5. “Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.”
6. “Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.”
7. “This our world, which is so real, with all its suns and milky ways is—nothing.”
8. “There are 80,000 prostitutes in London alone and what are they, if not bloody sacrifices on the altar of monogamy?”
9. “Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another’s money. Idiots!”
10. “Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.”
12. “A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.”
13. “Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.”
14. “The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.”
15. “The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.”
16. “The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.”
17. “When, in some dreadful and ghastly dream, we reach the moment of greatest horror, it awakes us; thereby banishing all the hideous shapes that were born of the night. And life is a dream: when the moment of greatest horror compels us to break it off, the same thing happens.”
18. “A man shows his character just in the way in which he deals with trifles-for then he is off his guard.”
19. “The greatest achievements of the human mind are generally received with distrust.”
20. “The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.”
21. “Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.”
22. “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 color perfectly harmonized; 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 colors, which at most are systematically arranged, but devoid of harmony, connection and meaning.”
23. “The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.”
24. “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.
25. “Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.”
26. “The world is my idea.”
27. “Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment.”
28. “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.”
29. “To live alone is the fate of all great souls.”
30. “A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.
31. “Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the center of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.”
32. “Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
33. “The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.”
34. “A genuine work of art, can never be false, nor can it be discredited through the lapse of time, for it does not present an opinion but the thing itself.”
35. “As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.”
36. “What a person is for himself, what abides with him in his loneliness and isolation, and what no one can give or take away from him, this is obviously more essential for him than everything that he possesses or what he may be in the eyes of others.”
37. “Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.”
38. “After your death you will be what you were before your birth.”
39. “Treat a work of art like a prince: let it speak to you first.”
40. “However, for the man who studies to gain insight, books and studies are merely rungs of the ladder on which he climbs to the summit of knowledge. As soon as a rung has raised him up one step, he leaves it behind. On the other hand, the many who study in order to fill their memory do not use the rungs of the ladder for climbing, but take them off and load themselves with them to take away, rejoicing at the increasing weight of the burden. They remain below forever, because they bear what should have borne them.”
41. “Truth is no harlot who throws her arms round the neck of him who does not desire her; on the contrary, she is so coy a beauty that even the man who sacrifices everything to her can still not be certain of her favors.”
42. “Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.”
43. “It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.”
44. “Just remember, once you’re over the hill you begin to pick up speed.”
45. “The closing years of life are like a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped.”
47. “It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.”
48. “A sense of humor is the only divine quality of man.”
49. “The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time.”
50. “Reason is feminine in nature; it can only give after it has received. Of itself it has nothing but the empty forms of its operation.”
51. “What a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has or how he is regarded by others.”
52. “Faith is like love: it does not let itself be forced.”