Quotes from Arthur Schopenhauer

El mundo es el infierno, y los hombres se dividen en almas atormentadas y diablos atormentadores.

That woman is by nature intended to obey is shown by the fact that every woman who is placed in the unnatural position of absolute independence at once attaches herself to some kind of man, by whom she is controlled and governed; this is because she requires a master. If she, is young, the man is a lover; if she is old, a priest.

it seems to me that the idea of dignity can be applied only in an ironical sense to a being whose will is so sinful, whose intellect is so limited, whose body is so weak and perishable as man's. How shall a man be proud, when his conception is a crime, his birth a penalty, his life a labour, and death a necessity!—

Das Leben schwingt, gleich einem Pendel, hin und her, zwischen dem Schmerz und der Langeweile.

Din flac?ra purificatoare a durerii, negarea voin?ei de a tr?i, adic? eliberarea, izbucne?te ca un fulger.

The task of the novelist is not to narrate great events but to make small ones interesting.

There are tree main bulwarks of defence against new thoughts: to pay no heed, to give no credence, and finally to assert that it had already long existed.

The truth is that we ought to be wretched, and are so.

as pessoas comuns têm profundo respeito ante os especialistas de todo o género. Ignoram que quem faz de um assunto a sua profissão não ama o assunto em si, e sim o lucro que ele lhe dá; e que aquele que ensina um assunto raras vezes o conhece a fundo, porque para aquele que o estuda a fundo não resta, em geral, tempo para dedicar-se ao ensino.

If life – the craving for which is the very essence of our being – were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing. But as it is, we take no delight in existence except when we are struggling for something; and then distance and difficulties to be overcome make our goal look as if it would satisfy us.

The way to keep down hatred and contempt is certainly not to look for a man's alleged dignity, but, on the contrary, to regard him as an object of pity.

Accordingly, the loss of the beloved one through a rival, or through death, is the greatest pain of all to those passionately in love; just because it is of a transcendental nature, since it affects him not merely as an individual, but also assails him in his essentia aeterna, in the life of the species, in whose special will and service he was here called. This is why jealousy is so tormenting and bitter, and the giving up of the loved one the greatest of all sacrifices.

The life of a fool is worse than death[1].

Only through the unification of time and space is there matter, i.e. the possibility of simultaneity, and through that, duration, and again through these, the persistence of substance during alteration of state.

une foule énorme de gens ne sont sur la terre que pour mettre finalement au monde, à la suite de longs et mystérieux croisements, un homme qui, entre mille, possédera quelque indépendance

If you want to reach a large audience, appeal to idiots.

Your University professors are bound to preach optimism; and it is an easy and agreeable task to upset their theories.

It is for this reason that we find that co-existence, which could neither be in time alone, for time has no contiguity, nor in space alone, for space has no before, after, or now

One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.

Therefore it has always been said that music is the language of feeling and of passion, as words are the language of reason.

The real meaning of persona is a mask, such as actors were accustomed to wear on the ancient stage; and it is quite true that no one shows himself as he is, but wears his mask and plays his part.

Intellectual effort for its own sake, they call eccentricity.

Exigir la inmortalidad del individuo es querer perpetuar un error hasta el infinito. En el fondo, toda individualidad es un error especial, una equivocación, algo que no debiera existir, el verdadero objetivo de la vida es librarnos de él.

an intellect that positively excels even in one single direction is among the rarest of natural phenomena.