Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) was a German philosopher and essayist. He is one of the most prominent figures in the history of philosophy. He emphasized the primacy of the will over both reason and sensation. He was greatly influenced by Indian philosophical thought, which he held was consistent with Immanuel Kant’s philosophy in every significant respect.
Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy is based on studies of Kant, Plato, and the Hindu Upaniṣads. In his principal work, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (1819; The World as Will and Idea, 1883,) he contended that the will (self-consciousness in man and the unconscious forces of nature) is the only reality and that the material world is but an illusion (“idea” or “representation”) created by the will.
Schopenhauer was one of the first Western thinkers to take Indian philosophical thought seriously. Admiring the Hindu and Buddhist philosophies of forbearance and resignation, he maintained that happiness is achieved only by renouncing the will (as desired.) Asceticism and purity are the obligations of humankind to terminate the evil. Egoism, which expresses itself principally as ‘the will to live,’ must be conquered.
Schopenhauer also published Ü ber den Willen in der Natur (On the Will in Nature, 1836,) on how his philosophy was consistent with the sciences, and Die Beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik (The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics, 1841.)
Schopenhauer’s philosophy influenced many intellectuals, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Richard Wagner, Leo Tolstoy, and Jorge Luis Borges.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Arthur Schopenhauer
We may divide thinkers into those who think for themselves, and those who think through others.—The latter are the rule, and the former the exception.—The first are original thinkers in a double sense, and egotists in the noblest meaning of the word.—It is from them only that the world learns wisdom—For only the light which we have kindled in ourselves can illuminate others.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Think, Thought
Gaiety alone, as it were, is the hard cash of happiness; everything else is just a promissory note.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Happiness, Cheerfulness
The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Age
The ultimate foundation of honor is the conviction that moral character is unalterable: a single bad action implies that future actions of the same kind will, under similar circumstances, also be bad.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Honor
No one can transcend their own individuality.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Individuality
The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Intelligence, Existence, Men
According to me, the influence of Sanskrit literature will not be lesser than what was, in the 16th century, Greece’s influence on Renaissance. One day, India’s wisdom will flow again on Europe and will totally transform our knowledge and thought.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
My desire is for wisdom, not for the exercise of the will. The will is the strong blind man who carries on his shoulders the lame man who can see.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Willpower, Will, Wisdom, Will Power
Consciousness is the mere surface of our minds, of which, as of the earth, we do not know the inside, but only the crust.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Life
The word of man is the most durable of all material.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Language
Do not shorten the morning by getting up late; look upon it as the quintessence of life, and to a certain extent sacred.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Morning
The man who sees two or three generations is like one who sits in the conjuror’s booth at a fair, and sees the same tricks two or three times. They are meant to be seen only once.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Generations
A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Conflict
Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Books, Reading, Literature, Thinking
The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Age
Great minds are like eagles, and build their nest in some lofty solitude.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Greatness, Mind, Greatness & Great Things
There is no vice, of which a man can be guilty, no meanness, no shabbiness, no unkindness, which excited so much indignation among his contemporaries, friends and neighbors, as his success. This is the one unpardonable crime, which reason cannot defend, nor [can] humility mitigate.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Reason, Vice, Kindness, Success, Humility, Kind, Friend
It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Sacrifice
Hatred comes from the heart; contempt from the head; and neither feeling is quite within our control.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Control
Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Will, Willpower, Will Power
Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Patriotism
The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Mankind, Body, Man
Pride … is the direct appreciation of oneself.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Confidence, Assurance
Genius is an intellect that has become unfaithful to its destiny.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Genius
Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment—a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man’s existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Suicide
A man of genius can hardly be sociable, for what dialogues could indeed be so intelligent and entertaining as his own monologues?
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Genius
Each day is a little life; every waking and rising a little birth; every fresh morning a little youth; every going to rest and sleep a little death.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Time Management, Fresh, Dying, Death, Morning
Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Money, Defects, Greed
Fame is something that must be won. Honor is something that must not be lost.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Fame
To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Correction, Reform
The common man is not concerned about the passage of time, the man of talent is driven by it.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Time Management
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
Most people take the limits of their vision to be the limits of the world. A few do not. Join them.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: People, Vision
Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Honor
Time is that which in all things passes away.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Time Management
To the man who studies to gain a thorough insight into science, books and study are merely the steps of the ladder by which he climbs to the summit; as soon as a step has been advanced he leaves it behind.—The majority of mankind, however, who study to fill their memory with facts do not use the steps of the ladder to mount upward, but take them off and lay them on their shoulders in order that they may take them along, delighting in the weight of the burden they are carrying.—They ever remain below because they carry what should carry them.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Study
Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Journalism, Journalists
Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Face, Faces
The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Desires, Desire
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