Quotes from Arthur Schopenhauer

For what is our civilised world but a big masquerade? where you meet knights, priests, soldiers, men of learning, barristers, clergymen, philosophers, and I don't know what all! But they are not what they pretend to be; they are only masks, and, as a rule, behind the masks you will find moneymakers.

officers in the army, (except those in the highest positions), are paid most inadequately for the services they perform; and the deficiency is made up by honor, which is represented by titles and orders, and, in general, by the system of rank and distinction.

Imitation and custom are the spring of almost all human action. The cause of it is that men fight shy of all and any sort of reflection, and very properly mistrust their own discernment. At the same time this remarkably strong imitative instinct

what penalty can frighten a man who is not afraid of death itself?

So treibt das Bedürfnis der Gesellschaft, aus der Leere und Monotonie des eigenen Innern entsprungen, die Menschen zueinander; aber ihre vielen widerwärtigen Eigenschaften und unerträglichen Fehler stoßen sie wieder voneinander ab.

Imitation and custom are the spring of almost all human action. The cause of it is that men fight shy of all and any sort of reflection, and very properly mistrust their own discernment. At the same time this remarkably strong imitative instinct in man is a proof of his kinship with apes.

Conscience accompanies every act with the comment: You should act differently, although its true sense is: You could be other than you are.

Mesmo sem haver nenhum motivo especial, trazia em mim uma contínua e íntima preocupação, que me levava a ver e procurar perigos onde não havia. Isso amplia ao infinito a menor inquietação e me dificulta por completo o relacionamento com os seres humanos.

Omul gaseste adversari pretutindeni si moare cu armele in miini.Dar existenta noastra nu este posibila fara toate acestea

I have been pursuing my own train of thought for more than thirty years, undisturbed by all this, just because it is what I must do, and I could not do otherwise, out of an instinctive drive which is nonetheless supported by the confidence that what is thought truly and what throws light on obscurity will be grasped at some point by another thinking mind.XX

A man can be himself, only so long as he is alone

It then becomes clear and certain to him that he does not know a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world around him is there only as representation, in other words, only in reference to another thing, namely that which represents, and this is himself.

Mas vamos vivendo nossos belos dias, sem percebê-los; só quando chegam os ruins é que os desejamos de volta. Milhares de horas serenas e agradáveis deixamos passar por nós, sem fluí-las e mostrando má vontade, para depois, em tempos sombrios, dirigirmos em vão o nosso anelo para elas.

La música no expresa nunca el fenómeno, sino únicamente la escencia íntima, el en sí de todo fenómeno.

A única felicidade é a de não ter nascido.

Life is only the mirror into which a man gazes not in order that he may get a reflection of himself, but that he may come to understand himself by that reflection; that he may see what it is that the mirror shows.

Therefore if egoism has a firm hold of a man and masters him, whether it be in the form of joy, or triumph, or lust, or hope, or frantic grief, or annoyance, or anger, or fear, or suspicion, or passion of any kind—he is in the devil's clutches and how he got into them does not matter. What is needful is that he should make haste to get out of them; and here, again, it does not matter how.

The greatest intellectual capacities are only found in connection with a vehement and passionate will.

A man may begin by following the craving of desire, until he comes to see how hollow and unreal a thing is life, how deceitful are its pleasures, what horrible aspects it possesses; and this it is that makes people hermits, penitents, Magdalenes.

The paltry character of most men compels the few who have any merit or genius to behave as though they did not know their own value, and consequently did not know other people's want of value; for it is only on this condition that the mob acquiesces in tolerating merit. A virtue has been made out of this necessity, and it is called modesty.

Life is a stage where the worst actor plays the king while the best actor the beggar.

The peculiar characteristic of the philistine is a dull, dry kind of gravity, akin to that of animals. Nothing really pleases, or excites, or interests him, for sensual pleasure is quickly exhausted, and the society of philistines soon becomes burdensome, and one may even get tired of playing cards.

The actual facts of morality are too much on my side for me to fear that my theory can ever be replaced or upset by any other.

This is in the highest degree the case with many of Goethe's and Byron's poems, which are obviously founded upon actual facts; where it is open to a foolish reader to envy the poet because so many delightful things happened to him, instead of envying that mighty power of phantasy which was capable of turning a fairly common experience into something so great and beautiful.