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A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.

Arthur Schopenhauer

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Arthur Schopenhauer
Age: 72 †
Born: 1788
Born: February 22
Died: 1860
Died: September 21
Musicologist
Philosopher
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Danzig
Sad
Conflict
Wants
Men

More quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

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Empirical sciences prosecuted purely for their own sake, and without philosophic tendency are like a face without eyes.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The law of simplicity and naïveté applies to all fine art, for it is compatible with what is most sublime.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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A good supply of resignation is of the first importance in providing for the journey of life.
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Want and boredom are indeed the twin poles of human life.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Nothing shocks our moral feelings so deeply as cruelty does. We can forgive every other crime, but not cruelty. The reason for this is that it is the very opposite of compassion.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Every nation criticizes every other one - and they are all correct.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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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
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Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to dramatic art, for the object of journalism is to make events go as far as possible.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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A writer should never be brief at the expense of being clear.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Honor means that a man is not exceptional fame, that he is.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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All pantheism must ultimately be shipwrecked on the inescapable demands of ethics, and then on the evil and suffering of the world. If the world is a theophany , then everything done by man, and even by animal, is equally divine and excellent nothing can be more censurable and nothing more praiseworthy than anything else hence there is no ethics.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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the brut first knows death when it dies, but man draws consciously nearer to it every hour that he lives and this makes his life at times a questionable good even to him who has not recognised this character of constant anaihilation in the whole of life.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Nothing in life gives a man so much courage as the attainment or renewal of the conviction that other people regard him with favor because it means that everyone joins to give him help and protection, which is an infinitely stronger bulwark against the ills of life than anything he can do himself.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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There is one respect in which beasts show real wisdom... their quiet, placid enjoyment of the present moment.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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It is only a man's own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else's meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another but women are by nature enemies.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Reading is a mere makeshift for original thinking.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Every human perfection is linked to an error which it threatens to turn into
Arthur Schopenhauer