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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.)

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
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Mensch
Nicht

More quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

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The world is not a factory and animals are not products for our use
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Rudeness is better than any argument it totally eclipses intellect.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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It is a wise thing to be polite consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. For politeness is like a counter--an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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If at any moment Time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the miseries of boredom.
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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Poverty and slavery are thus only two forms ofthe same thing, the essence of which is that a man's energies are expended for the most part not on his own behalf but on that of others.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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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.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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It is a clumsy experiment to make for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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[T]he appropriate form of address between man and man ought to be, not monsieur, sir, but fellow sufferer, compagnon de miseres.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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At bottom, every state regards another as a gang of robbers who will fall upon it as soon as there is an opportunity.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Patriotism is the passion of fools and the most foolish of passions.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The Universe is a dream dreamed by a single dreamer where all the dream characters dream too.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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To use many words to communicate few thoughts is everywhere the unmistakable sign of mediocrity. To gather much thought into few words stamps the man of genius.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The charlatan takes very different shapes according to circumstances but at bottom he is a man who cares nothing about knowledge for its own sake, and only strives to gain the semblance of it that he may use it for his own personal ends, which are always selfish and material.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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What a man is: that is to say, personality, in the widest sense of the word under which are included health, strength, beauty, temperament, moral character, intelligence, and education.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Mankind cannot get on without a certain amount of absurdity.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Vedas are the most rewarding and the most elevating book which can be possible in the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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With health, everything is a source of pleasure without it, nothing else, whatever it may be, is enjoyable...Healt h is by far the most important element in human happiness.
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