Quote

To free a man from error is to give, not to take away. Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth. Error always does harm sooner or later it will bring mischief to the man who harbors it.

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
Give
Harm
Take
Later
Giving
Bring
Harbors
Thing
Knowledge
Mischief
Always
Free
Sooner
Men
Away
Error
Truth
False
Doe
Errors

More quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

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Women remain children all their lives, for they always see only what is near at hand, cling to the present, take the appearance of a thing for reality, and prefer trifling matters to the most important.
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Mensch kann tun was er will er kann aber nicht wollen was er will. (One can choose what to do, but not what to want.)
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The word of man is the most durable of all material.
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Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.
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That human life must be some kind of mistake is sufficiently proved by the simple observation that man is a compound of needs which are hard to satisfy that their satisfaction achieves nothing but a painless condition in which he is only given over to boredom . . .
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Animals learn death first at the moment of death...man approaches death with the knowledge it is closer every hour, and this creates a feeling of uncertainty over his life, even for him who forgets in the business of life that annihilation is awaiting him. It is for this reason chiefly that we have philosophy and religion.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Of all the intellectual faculties, judgment is the last to mature. A child under the age of fifteen should confine its attention either to subjects like mathematics, in which errors of judgment are impossible, or to subjects in which they are not very dangerous, like languages, natural science, history, etc.
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Men of learning are those who have read the contents of books. Thinkers, geniuses, and those who have enlightened the world and furthered the race of men, are those who have made direct use of the book of the world.
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First the truth is ridiculed. Then it meets outrage. Then it is said to have been obvious all along.
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Just as a stream flows smoothly on as long as it encounters no obstruction, so the nature of man and animal is such that we never really notice or become conscious of what is agreeable to our will if we are to notice something, our will has to have been thwarted, has to have experienced a shock of some kind.
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Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones for life is short, and time and energy limited.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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If a person is stupid, we excuse him by saying that he cannot help it but if we attempted to excuse in precisely the same way the person who is bad, we should be laughed at.
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.
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Reading is a mere makeshift for original thinking.
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Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
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The life of every individual is really always a tragedy, but gone through in detail, it has the character of a comedy.
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It would be better if there were nothing. Since there is more pain than pleasure on earth, every satisfaction is only transitory, creating new desires and new distresses, and the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer
Arthur Schopenhauer
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What a person is for himself, what abides with him in his loneliness and isolation, and what no one can give or take away from him, this is obviously more essential for him than everything that he possesses or what he may be in the eyes of others.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Human life must be some form of mistake.
Arthur Schopenhauer