Quotes from Arthur Schopenhauer

deve-se evitar toda prolixidade e todo entrelaçamento de observações que não valem o esforço da leitura. (...) É sempre melhor deixar de lado algo bom do que incluir algo insignificante. (...) Sobretudo, não dizer tudo!

Therefore books do not take the place of experience, because concepts always remain universal, and so do not reach down to the particular; yet it is precisely the particular that has to be dealt with in life.

Lack of the power to discriminate is no less evident in the sciences, namely in the tenacious life of false and refuted theories. Once come into general credit, they continue to defy truth for centuries. - On Various Subjects

Querer es esencialmente sufrir, y como vivir es querer, toda la vida es por esencia dolor. Cuanto más elevado es el ser, más sufre... La vida del hombre no es más que una lucha por la existencia, con la certidumbre de resultar vencido...

striving for happiness] is like an unquenchable thirst: we may attain some brief satisfactions, some momentary release, but in the nature of things these can never be more than temporary, and then we are on the rack once more. So unhappiness, or at least dissatisfaction, is our normal state of affairs.

la vanità cerca l'applauso degli altri per costruirci sopra un'alta opinione di sé, è presupposto della superbia che quella esista fin da principio

Nothing is without a reason why it is rather than it is not

I was gripped by the misery of life as Buddha was in his youth when he saw sickness, old age, pain and death. The truth . . . was that this world could not have been the work of an all-loving Being, but rather that of a devil, who had brought creatures into existence in order to delight in the sight of their sufferings; to this the data pointed, and the belief that it is so won the upper hand.

Thus, flowers cannot be preserved, but their ethereal oil, their essence, with the same smell and the same virtues, can. The conduct that has had correct concepts for its guidance will, in the result, coincide with the reality intended.

She has tender feet, for she walks not on the hard earth, but treads on the heads of men

the more a man belongs to posterity, in other words, to humanity in general, the more of an alien he is to his contemporaries; since his work is not meant for them as such, but only for them in so far as they form part of mankind at large; there is none of that familiar local color about his productions which would appeal to them; and so what he does, fails of recognition because it is strange.

Every State looks upon its neighbours as at bottom a horde of robbers, who will fall upon it as soon as they have the opportunity.

It is very necessary that a man should be apprised early in life that it is a masquerade in which he finds himself.

El hecho de que, detrás de la angustia, se encuentre de inmediato el aburrimiento, que afecta hasta a los animales más inteligentes, es consecuencia de que la vida no tiene ningún contenido verdadero y auténtico, sino que solo se mantiene en movimiento por necesidad e ilusión: y tan pronto como el movimiento se detiene, aparece toda la esterilidad y el vacío de la existencia.

whoever attributes no merit to himself because he really has none is not modest, but merely honest.

Under presupposition of free will each human action would be an inexplicable miracle - an effect without cause. And if one dares the attempt to make such a liberum arbitrium indifferentiae imaginable to oneself, one will soon become aware that here the understanding quite genuinely comes to a standstill: it has no form for thinking of such a thing.

Seneca[1] rightly remarks, ut quisque contemtissimus et ludibrio est, ita solutissimae est, the more contemptible and ridiculous a man is,-the readier he is with his tongue.

O desejo sexual, sobretudo quando se concentra na paixão, fixando-se numa determinada mulher é a quintessência de todas as fraudes desse nobre mundo; isso porque promete indizivelmente, infinitamente e extraordinariamente muito e cumpre miseravelmente pouco.

everyone desires to achieve old age, that is to say a condition in which one can say: Today is bad, and day by day it will get worse - until at last the worst of all arrives.

In accordance with such zeal, by reducing the external world to a matter of faith, he wanted merely to open a little door for faith in general, and to prepare the credit for that which was afterwards actually to be offered on credit; just as if, to introduce paper money, we tried to appeal to the fact that the value of the ringing coin depended merely on the stamp the State put on it.

Ihmiselle ylittämätöntä on hänen turhamaisuutensa tyydyttäminen. Mikään vamma ei koske häneen niin kuin turhamaisuutensa kokema kolaus.

The best consolation in misfortune or affliction of any kind will be the thought of other people who are in a still worse plight than yourself; and this is a form of consolation open to every one. But what an awful fate this means for mankind as a whole!

Her halk diÄŸer halklar? kötüler ve hepsi de hakl?.

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them.