Arthur Schopenhauer

Germany
22 Feb 1788 // 21 Sep 1860
Philosopher

Texts



Personal Merit Has to Beg Pardon in Society (1)

What offends a great intellect in society is the equality of rights, leading to equality of pretensions, which everyone enjoys; while at the same time, inequality of capacity means a corresponding di...

Constraint is Always Present in Society (2)

All society necessarily involves, as the first condition of its existence, mutual accommodation and restraint upon the part of its members. This means that the larger it is, the more insipid will be ...

Experience is Useless without Reflection (3)

To live a life that shall be entirely prudent and discreet, and to draw from experience all the instruction it contains, it is requisite to be constantly thinking back, to make a kind of recapitulati...

Hapiness and Ocupation of Mind (4)

Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends, ultimately, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our consciousness. In this respect, purely intellectual occupation, for the mi...

Limitations Always Make for Happiness (5)

We are happy in proportion as our range of vision, our sphere of work, our points of contact with the world, are restricted and circumscribed. We are more likely to feel worried and anxious if these ...

Live the Present (6)

Another important element in the wise conduct of life is to preserve a proper proportion between our thought for the present and our thought for the future; in order not to spoil the one by paying ov...

We Are All Alchemists of Life (7)

Men of any worth or value soon come to see that they are in the hands of fate, and gratefully submit to be moulded by its teachings. They recognize that the fruit of life is experience, and not happi...

The Character as a Whole (8)

The mason employed on the building of a house may be quite ignorant of its general design; or at any rate, he may not keep it constantly in mind. So it is with man: in working through the days and ho...

Unfulfilled Life Expectations (9)

How often it happens that a man is unable to enjoy the wealth which he acquired at so much trouble and risk, and that the fruits of his labor are reserved for others; or that he is incapable of filli...

Happiness does not Demand Many Possessions (10)

Care should be taken not to build the happiness of life upon a broad foundation - not to require a great many things in order to be happy. For happiness on such a foundation is the most easily underm...


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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays