Quote

Pleasure is never as pleasant as we expected it to be and pain is always more painful. The pain in the world always outweighs the pleasure. If you don't believe it, compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is eating the other.

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
Pleasure
Respective
Pain
Compare
Feelings
Pleasant
Two
Expected
Believe
Painful
Always
Animals
Never
Eating
World
Animal
Outweighs

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There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake. ... The truth is that when an author begins to write for the sake of covering paper, he is cheating the reader because he writes under the pretext that he has something to say.
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The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.
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We see in tragedy the noblest men, after a long conflict and suffering, finally renounce forever all the pleasure of life and the aims till then pursued so keenly, or cheerfully and willingly give up life itself.
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Every human perfection is linked to an error which it threatens to turn into
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The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.
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The word of man is the most durable of all material.
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Every state of welfare, every feeling of satisfaction, is negative in its character that is to say, it consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of existence.
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It is not what things are objectively and in themselves, but what they are for us, in our way of looking at them, that makes us happy or the reverse.
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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.
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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.
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A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial.
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Patriotism is the passion of fools and the most foolish of passions.
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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.
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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.
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Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.
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A word too much always defeats its purpose.
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Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another but women are by nature enemies.
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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.
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Honor has not to be won it must only not be lost.
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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.
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