Quotes from Arthur Schopenhauer

We should treat with indulgence every human folly, failing, and vice, bearing in mind that what we have before us are simply our own failings, follies, and vices.

Genius is among other minds what the carbuncle is among gemstones; it radiates its own light while the others only reflect what they receive.

Virtue is as little taught as is genius; indeed, the concept is just as unfruitful for it as it is for art, and in the case of both can be used only as an instrument. We should therefore be just as foolish to expect that our moral systems and ethics would create virtuous, noble, and holy men, as that our aesthetics would produce poets, painters, and musicians.

While illusion distorts reality for a moment, error can reign for a millennia in abstractions, throw its iron yoke over whole peoples and stifle the noblest impulses of humanity; those it cannot deceive are left in chains by those it has, by its slaves.

In every human undertaking there is something which is not in our power and does not come within our calculations; the wish to win this for oneself is the origin of the gods. Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor is an old and true saying of Petronius.

We learn by experience that happiness and pleasure are a fata morgana, which, visible from afar, vanish as we approach; that, on the other hand, suffering and pain are a reality, which makes its presence felt without any intermediary, and for its effect, stands in no need of illusion or the play of false hope.

Want and boredom are indeed the twin poles of human life.

The cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real objects which have been thought through it in some relation, and laughter itself is just the expression of this incongruity.... All laughter then is occasioned by a paradox.... This, briefly stated, is the true explanation of the ludicrous.

We are all innocent to begin with, and this merely means that neither we nor others know the evil of our own nature.

There is no absurdity so palpable that one could not fix it firmly in the head of every man on earth provided one began to imprint it before his sixth year by ceaselessly rehearsing it before him with solemn earnestness.

Fundamental disposition towards others, assuming the character either of Envy or of Sympathy, is the point at which the moral virtues and vices of mankind first diverge.

What a bad conscience religion must have is to be judged by the fact that it is forbidden under pain of such severe punishment to mock it. - On Religion

Since everything which exists or happens for a man exists only in his consciousness and happens for it alone, the most essential thing for a man is the constitution of this consciousness, which is in most cases far more important than the circumstances which go to form its contents.

Religions are like glow-worms: they need darkness in order to shine. A certain degree of general ignorance is the condition for the existence of any religion.

Life itself is a sea full of reefs and maelstroms that a human being takes the greatest care and caution to avoid; he uses all his efforts and ingenuity to wend his way through, while knowing that even if he is successful, every step brings him closer to the greatest, the total, the inescapable and irreparable shipwreck, and in fact steers him right up to it, - to death: this is the final goal of the miserable journey and worse for him that all the reefs he managed to avoid.

Byron, in "Don Juan", face o satira amara la adresa femeilor care transforma dragostea intr-o "afacere de cap" uitind ca au "inima". Capul vine dupa inima, caci nu el este centrul corpului, ci o dezvoltare a lui. Cind moare un erou i se imbalsameaza inima, in timp ce filozofii si poetii au parte, dupa moarte, de cercetarea amanuntita a craniului si creierului.

All religions promise a reward for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding.

Natura se amuza citeodata formind combinatii caraghioase. Sint unii care-ntr-una casca ochii la nimicuri si rid ca papagalii in fata unui simplu cintaret din cimpoi; iar altii au o infatisare asa de posomorita, incit nici macar n-ar suride auzind o gluma buna. Nu s-a spus adesea ca, in fond, spiritul cel mai limitat este cel mai fericit?

To such an one we speak as those who are like us have spoken to us, and have so become our comfort in the wilderness of this life.

Caci avutia este ca apa sarata: cu cat bei cu atat ti-e mai este. La fel este si gloria.

The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud;

Ein geistreicher Mensch hat, in gänzlicher Einsamkeit, an seinen eigenen Gedanken und Phantasien vortreffliche Unterhaltung, während von einem Stumpfen die fortwährende Abwechslung von Gesellschaften, Schauspielen, Ausfahrten und Lustbarkeiten, die marternde Langeweile nicht abzuwenden vermag.

A man of genius can hardly be sociable, for what dialogues could indeed be so intelligent and entertaining as his own monologues?

La vita e i sogni sono fogli di uno stesso libro. Leggerli in ordine è vivere, sfogliarli a caso è sognare.