53 Quotes About 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 want to never so much, but that his conduct proceeds from his inborn and inalterable character, is narrowly and in particulars determined by motivation, and is thus necessarily the product of these two factors.

For what is modesty but hypocritical humility, by means of which, in a world swelling with vile envy, a man seeks to beg pardon for his excellences and merits from those who have none?For whoever attributes no merit to himself because he really has none is not modest, but merely honest.

In fact, the balance wheel which maintains in motion the watch of metaphysics that never runs down, is the clear knowledge that this world's non-existence is just as possible as its existence."―from_The World as Will and Representation_. Translated from the German by E. F. J. Payne. In Two Volumes, Volume II, p. 171

Reproduction is the ultimate purpose of every organism, and its strongest instinct; for only so can the will conquer death.And to ensure this conquest of death, the will to reproduce is placed almost entirely beyond control of knowledge or reflection: even a philosopher, occasionally, has children.

If God made this world, then i would not want to be the God. It is full of misery and distress that it breaks my heart.

Spinoza says that if a stone which has been projected through the air, had consciousness, it would believe that it was moving of its own free will. I add this only, that the stone would be right. The impulse given it is for the stone what the motive is for me, and what in the case of the stone appears as cohesion, gravitation, rigidity, is in its inner nature the same as that which I recognise in myself as will, and what the stone also, if knowledge were given to it, would recognise as will.

just as the mistakes princes make are paid for by whole peoples, so the errors of great minds spread their malign influence over whole generations, even for hundreds of years, growing and proliferating until in the end they degenerate into monstrosities.

Of how many a man may it not be said that hope made a fool of him until he danced into the arms of death!

By striving to see through the veil of our ordinary perceptions, we can come closer to understanding our profound relationship to all created things—all possibilities and potentialities—past and present, great and small.