Quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

About Arthur Schopenhauer:

Arthur Schopenhauer is best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation, in which he characterizes the phenomenal world, and consequently all human action, as the product of a blind, insatiable, and malignant metaphysical will.
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Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them; but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.

Arthur Schopenhauer

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Arthur Schopenhauer

The art of reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a gr...

Arthur Schopenhauer

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 t...

Arthur Schopenhauer

The true basis and propaedeutic for all knowledge of human nature is the persuasion that a man's actions are, essentially and as a whole, not directed by his reason and its designs; so that no one becomes this or that because he wants to, though he w...

Arthur Schopenhauer

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.

Arthur Schopenhauer

To free a man from error is not to deprive him of anything but to give him something: for the knowledge that a thing is false is a piece of truth. No error is harmless: sooner or later it will bring misfortune to him who harbours it. Therefore deceiv...

Arthur Schopenhauer

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for you...

Arthur Schopenhauer

Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own i...

Arthur Schopenhauer

Writers may be classified as meteors, planets, and fixed stars. They belong not to one system, one nation only, but to the universe. And just because they are so very far away, it is usually many years before their light is visible to the inhabitants...

Arthur Schopenhauer

One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind. In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and stre...

Arthur Schopenhauer

When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. In learning to write, the pupil goes over with his pen what the teacher has outlined in pencil: so in reading; the greater part of the work of thought is already done fo...

Arthur Schopenhauer

Let us see rather that like Janus—or better, like Yama, the Brahmin god of death—religion has two faces, one very friendly, one very gloomy...

Arthur Schopenhauer

The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Mitleid mit den Thieren hängt mit der Güte des Charakters so genau zusammen, daß man zuversichtlich behaupten darf, wer gegen Thiere grausam ist, könne kein guter Mensch seyn.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed.

Arthur Schopenhauer

There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.

Arthur Schopenhauer

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Author Bio

  • NameArthur Schopenhauer
  • DescriptionGerman philosopher
  • BornFebruary 22, 1788
  • DiedSeptember 21, 1860
  • CountryGermany
  • ProfessionUniversity Professor; Philosopher; Writer; Musicologist