958 Quotes by 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 inferiority.

[T]he empirical inscrutableness of all natural things is a proof a posteriori of the ideality and merely phenomenal-actuality of their empirical existence.

The cheapest kind of pride, on the other hand, is national pride. For it betrays in those affected by it the lack of individual qualities of which they could be proud, since they would otherwise not grasp at something that they share with so many millions. Rather those who possess significant personal qualities will recognize most clearly the faults of their own nation, since they constantly have them in front of them.

universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.

there are very few who can think, but every man wants to have an opinion; and what remains but to take it ready-made from others, instead of forming opinions for himself?

Că însă un patron absolut ticălos precum Hegel, a cărui întreagă pseudofilozofare a fost de fapt o amplificare monstruoasă a argumentului ontologic, a căutat să-I apere pe acesta împotriva criticii lui Kant constituie o alianţă de care însuşi argumentului ontologic i s-ar face ruşine, oricât de puţin are el de-a face cu ruşinea.

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

Pantheism is a self-defeating concept, because the concept of a God presupposes a world different from him as an essential correlate. If, on the other hand, the world is supposed to take over his role, then an absolute world without God remains; hence pantheism is only an euphemism for atheism.