Quotes from Arthur Schopenhauer

En la vida pasa como con el ajedrez: en ambos trazamos, ciertamente, un plan, pero este queda total y completamente subordinado por aquello que, en el ajedrez, se le antoja hacer a nuestro adversario y, en la vida, al destino. La mayoría de las veces, las modificaciones resultantes son tan significativas que nuestro plan, cuando llega a realizarse, apenas queda reconocible en algunos rasgos básicos.

Gesunder Menschenverstand kann fast jeden Grad von Bildung ersetzen, aber kein Grad von Bildung den gesunden Menschenverstand.

Music is an unconscious exercise in metaphysics in which the mind does not know it is philosophizing.

To talk of rational beings apart from man is as if we attempted to talk of heavy beings apart from bodies.

But inherited wealth reaches its utmost value when it falls to the individual endowed with mental powers of a high order, who is resolved to pursue a line of life not compatible with the making of money; for he is then doubly endowed by fate and can live for his genius; and he will pay his debt to mankind a hundred times, by achieving what no other could achieve, by producing some work which contributes to the general good, and redounds to the honor of humanity at large.

Genius is an intellect that has become unfaithful to its destiny.

To form a judgment intuitively is the privilege of few; authority and example lead the rest of the world. They see with the eyes of others, they hear with the ears of others. Therefore it is very easy to think as all the world now think; but to think as all the world will think thirty years hence is not in the power of every one.

We take no pleasure in existence except when we are striving after something.

Because appearance remains appearance and does not become thing in itself.

We all feel that we are something other than a being which someone once created out of nothing: from this arises the confidence that, while death may be able to end our life, it cannot end our existence.

You can apply yourself voluntarily to reading and learning, but you cannot really apply yourself to thinking: thinking have to be kindled, as a fire is by a draught, and kept going by some kind of interest in its object, which may be an objective interest or merely a subjective one.

Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance.

Por sabedoria entendo a arte de tornar a vida mais agradável e feliz possível.

The cause of laughter is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real project.

And then, it is all one whether he has been happy or miserable; for his life was never anything more than a present moment always vanishing; and now it is over.

Only the carrying out stamps the resolve; till then, it is always a mere intention that can be altered; it exists only in reason, in the abstract. Only in reflection are willing and acting different; in reality they are one.

No little part of the torment of existence lies in this, that Time is continually pressing upon us, never letting us take breath, but always coming after us, like a taskmaster with a whip. If at any moment Time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the misery of boredom. But

The eternal being which, as it lives in us, also lives in every animal ... the animal is in essence absolutely the same thing that we are. - On Religion

Guardando tutto ciò che non abbiamo, siamo soliti pensare: E se fosse mio?, e cosí facendo avvertiamo la privazione. Viceversa, nel caso di ciò che possediamo dovremmo pensare spesso: E se lo perdessi?.

S? te ÅŸtii într-un pom fructul care, de prea mult? umbr?, nu se poate coace vreodat? ÅŸi s? vezi chiar în faÅ£a ta raza de soare care-Å£i lipseÅŸte

Pues cuanto más tiene uno en sí mismo, menos necesita del exterior y menos le importan los demás. Por eso la eminencia del espíritu conduce a la insociabilidad.

Descartes] And so it was he who discovered the gulf between the subjective or ideal and the objective or real. He clothed this insight in the form of a doubt concerning the existence of the external world; but by his inadequate solution of such doubt, namely that God Almighty would surely not deceive us, he has shown how profound the problem is and how difficult it is to solve.

Alles Urdenken geschieht in Bildern: darum ist die Phantasie ein so nothwendiges Werkzeug desselben, und werden phantasielose Köpfe nie etwas Großes leisten, - es sei denn in der Mathematik.

Riches, one may say, are like sea-water; the more you drink the thirstier you become; and the same is true of fame.