Quotes from Arthur Schopenhauer

Nossa vaidade congênita, especialmente suscetível em tudo o que diz respeito à capacidade intelectual, não quer aceitar que aquilo que num primeiro momento sustentávamos como verdadeiro se mostre falso, e verdadeiro aquilo que o adversário sustentava.

La volontà, come cosa in sé, differisce completamente dalla sua manifestazione fenomenica ed è assolutamente indipendente dalle forme di quest'ultima, che essa assimila solo quando si manifesta, e che quindi concernono solo la sua estrinsecazione obiettiva, ma sono estranee alla volontà stessa.

Bref, très peu de gens savent réfléchir, mais tous veulent avoir des opinion ;

We must first learn from experience what we desire and what we can do. Till then we know it not, we are without character, and must often be driven back to our own way by hard blows from without. But if we have finally learnt it, then we have attained to what in the world is called character, the acquired character. This is accordingly nothing but the most perfect knowledge possible of our own individuality.

If your abilities are only mediocre, modesty is mere honesty; but if you possess great talents, it is hypocrisy.

It is no longer sufficient to love others as himself and to do as much for them as he would do for himself; rather, a repugnance arises in him… towards the will-to-live, towards the core and essence of that world recognized as filled with misery.

Voluntary and complete chastity is the first step in asceticism or the denial of the will-to-live.

on the path of objective knowledge, thus starting from the representation, we shall never get beyond the representation, i.e. the phenomenon. We shall therefore remain at the outside of things: we shall never be able to penetrate into their inner nature, and investigate what they are in themselves, in other words, what they may be by themselves.

A young man of rich family enters upon life with a large patrimony, and often runs through it in an incredibly short space of time, in vicious extravagance; and why? Simply because, here too, the mind is empty and void, and so the man is bored with existence.

Aristotle says, To be happy means to be self-sufficient.

alteration (i.e. change that takes place according to causal law) always concerns a particular part of space and, simultaneously and together with this, a particular part of time. Consequently, causality unites space with time.

DüÅŸünmemekte hoÅŸ bir hayat vard?r. -Sophokles, Aias

Journalists are like dogs?when ever anything moves they begin to bark.

we have found that the whole essence of matter lies in action, a i.e. in causality: as a result, matter must also unify space and time, that is, matter must possess the properties of both time and space simultaneously

the longer you live the more clearly you will feel that, on the whole, life is a disappointment, nay, a cheat.

one man will look another in the face, with the impudent assurance that he will never see anything but a miserable resemblance of himself; and this is just what he will see, as he cannot grasp anything beyond it. Hence the bold way in which one man will contradict another.

Students, and learned persons of all sorts and every age, aim as a rule at acquiring information rather than insight. They pique themselves upon knowing about everything—stones, plants, battles, experiments, and all the books in existence. It never occurs to them that information is only a means of insight, and in itself of little or no value.

the true believer who commits heretics to the flames is as much a murderer as the bandit who makes a profit from his murder

Como seriam eruditos alguns autores se soubessem tudo o que está em seus próprios livros!) Por isso, seu texto costuma ter um sentido tão indeterminado que os leitores quebram em vão a cabeça na tentativa de descobrir o que eles pensam afinal. Eles simplesmente não pensam.

Quando procuramos estimular a nossa inteligência e o nosso conhecimento, sentimos constantemente a resistência da época como um peso que devemos arrastar, mas que, apesar de todo o nosso esforço, insiste em manter-se no chão.

The only thing that stands in our power to achieve, is to make the most advantageous use possible of the personal qualities we possess, and accordingly to follow such pursuits only as will call them into play, to strive after the kind of perfection of which they admit and to avoid every other; consequently, to choose the position, occupation and manner of life which are most suitable for their development.

Die Ehre ist nicht die Meinung von besonderen, diesem Subjekt allein zukommenden Eigenschaften, sondern nur von den der Regel nach vorauszusetzenden, als welche auch ihm nicht abgehen sollen. Sie besagt daher nur, daß dies Subjekt keine Ausnahme mache, während der Ruhm besagt, daß es eine mache. Ruhm muß daher erst erworben werden, die Ehre hingegen braucht bloß nicht verloren zu gehen.

What I have here described with feeble tongue and only in terms, is no philosophical fable, invented by myself, and only of today; no, it was the enviable life of so many saints and beautiful souls among Christians, and still more among Hindus and Buddhists and also among the believers of other religions.

these people would indeed only be concerned for themselves, for their egoism, just like the bandit, from whom they are distinguished only by the absurdity of their means.