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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
Conflict
Wants
Men
Sad

More quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

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Our first ideas of life are generally taken from fiction rather than fact.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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If you feel irritated by the absurd remarks of two people whose conversation you happen to overhear, you should imagine that you are listening to a dialogue of two fools in a comedy.
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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there are very few who can think, but every man wants to have an opinion and what remains but to take it ready-made from others, instead of forming opinions for himself?
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and slower it is in arriving at maturity. A man reaches the maturity of his reasoning powers and mental faculties hardly before the age of twenty-eight a woman at eighteen.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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To become indignant at [people's] conduct is as foolish as to be angry with a stone because it rolls into your path. And with many people the wisest thing you can do, is to resolve to make use of those whom you cannot alter.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Mankind cannot get on without a certain amount of absurdity.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.
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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The first forty years of life give us the text the next thirty supply the commentary on it.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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How entirely does the Upanishad breathe throughout the holy spirit of the Vedas! How is every one who by a diligent study of its Persian Latin has become familiar with that incomparable book stirred by that spirit to the very depth of his Soul !
Arthur Schopenhauer
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In their hearts women think that it is men's business to earn money and theirs to spend it.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Our civilized world is nothing but a great masquerade. You encounter knights, parsons, soldiers, doctors, lawyers, priests, philosophers and a thousand more: but they are not what they appear - they are merely masks... Usually, as I say, there is nothing but industrialists, businessmen and speculators concealed behind all these masks.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Gaiety alone, as it were, is the hard cash of happiness everything else is just a promissory note.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Want and boredom are indeed the twin poles of human life.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Honor has not to be won it must only not be lost.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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...nothing at all rides on the life or death of the individual.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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To truth only a brief celebration of victory is allowed between the two long periods during which it is condemned as paradoxical, or disparaged as trivial.
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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A sense of humour is the only divine quality of man
Arthur Schopenhauer