Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher)

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

Vengeance taken will often tear the heart and torment the conscience.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Vengeance, Revenge

Pride … is the direct appreciation of oneself.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Confidence, Assurance

To find out your real opinion of someone, judge the impression you have when you first see a letter from them.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Opinion, Letters, Opinions

Religion is the metaphysics of the masses.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Religion

It is a great piece of folly to sacrifice the inner for the outer man.
—Arthur Schopenhauer

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Relationships

Money is human happiness in the abstract; and so the man who is no longer capable of enjoying such happiness in the concrete, sets his whole heart on money.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Success, Happiness, Money

The greatest achievements of the human mind are generally received with distrust.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Ideas

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice… that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Death, Suicide

After your death you will be what you were before your birth.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Nature, Death, Birth, Dying

Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Face, Faces

Hatred comes from the heart; contempt from the head; and neither feeling is quite within our control.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Control

No one can transcend their own individuality.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Individuality

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, Man, Body

That the outer man is a picture of the inner, and the face an expression and revelation of the whole character, is a presumption likely enough in itself, and therefore a safe one to go on; borne out as it is by the fact that people are always anxious to see anyone who has made himself famous. Photography offers the most complete satisfaction of our curiosity.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Photography

Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Honor

A man of talent will strive for money and reputation; but the spring that moves genius to the production of its works is not as easy to name.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Genius

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

Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Money, Greed, Defects

The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Curiosity

The common man is not concerned about the passage of time, the man of talent is driven by it.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Time Management

If people insist that honor is dearer than life itself, what they really mean is that existence and well-being are as nothing compared with other people’s opinions. Of course, this may be only an exaggerated way of stating the prosaic truth that reputation, that is, the opinion others have of us, is indispensable if we are to make any progress in the world.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Honor

If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Opinions

It is in the treatment of trifles that a person shows what they are.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Facts

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, Death, Fresh, Dying, Morning

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome—to be got over.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Adversity

Men best show their character in trifles, where they are not on their guard.—It is in insignificant matters, and in the simplest habits, that we often see the boundless egotism which pays no regard to the feelings of others, and denies nothing to itself.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Character

It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Sacrifice

Human existence must be a kind of error…it may be said of it, ‘it is bad today and every day it will get worse, until the worst of all happens’.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Depression

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Topics: Luck, Time Management, Value of a Day, Change, Fortune

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