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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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Arthur Schopenhauer
Age: 72 †
Born: 1788
Born: February 22
Died: 1860
Died: September 21
Musicologist
Philosopher
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Danzig
Expect
Happiness
Happy
Way
Safest
Miserable

More quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

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Life without pain has no meaning.
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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All the cruelty and torment of which the world is full is in fact merely the necessary result of the totality of the forms under which the will to live is objectified.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Mankind cannot get on without a certain amount of absurdity.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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We can do what we wish, but we can only wish what we must.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.
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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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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The Universe is a dream dreamed by a single dreamer where all the dream characters dream too.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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I am often surprised by the cleverness, and now and again by the stupidity, of my dog and I have similar experiences with mankind.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Mostly the loss teaches us only about the value of things.
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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... that when you're buying books, you're optimistically thinking you're buying the time to read them. (Paraphrase of Schopenhauer)
Arthur Schopenhauer
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We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The world is my representation
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