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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
Men
Sad
Conflict
Wants

More quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

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He who writes carelessly confesses thereby at the very outset that he does not attach much importance to his own thoughts.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Will without intellect is the most vulgar and common thing in the world, possessed by every blockhead, who, in the gratification of his passions, shows the stuff of which he is made.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Wir tappen im Labyrinth unsers Lebenswandels und im Dunkel unserer Forschungen umher: helleAugenblicke erleuchten dabei wie Blitze unsernWeg. We grope about in the labyrinth of our life and in the obscurity of our investigations bright moments illuminate our path like flashes of lightning.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The inexpressible depth of music, so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain… Music expresses only the quintessence of life and its events, never these themselves.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Honor has not to be won it must only not be lost.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Knowledge is to certain extent a second existence.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Whatever torch we kindle, and whatever space it may illuminate, our horizon will always remain encircled by the depth of night.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Unrest is the mark of existence.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Pride works _from within_ it is the direct appreciation of oneself. Vanity is the desire to arrive at this appreciation indirectly, from without.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Were an Asiatic to ask me for a definition of Europe, I should be forced to answer him: It is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing, and that his present birth is his first entrance into life.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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A man of business will often deceive you without the slightest scruple, but he will absolutely refuse to commit a theft.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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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
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Whoever heard me assert that the grey cat playing just now in the yard is the same one that did jumps and tricks there five hundred years ago will think whatever he likes of me, but it is a stranger form of madness to imagine that the present-day cat is fundamentally an entirely different one.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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A man's delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome to be got over.
Arthur Schopenhauer