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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
Safest
Miserable
Expect
Happiness
Happy
Way

More quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

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I have described religion as the metaphysics of the people.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome to be got over.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Knowledge is to certain extent a second existence.
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.
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Happiness of any given life is to be measured, not by its joys and pleasures, but by the extent to which it has been free from suffering-from positive evil.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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What give all that is tragic, whatever its form, the characteristic of the sublime, is the first inkling of the knowledge that the world and life can give no satisfaction, and are not worth our investment in them. The tragic spirit consists in this. Accordingly it leads to resignation.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Human existence is an error...it is bad today and every day it gets worse, until the worst happens.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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He who writes carelessly confesses thereby at the very outset that he does not attach much importance to his own thoughts.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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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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A man of business will often deceive you without the slightest scruple, but he will absolutely refuse to commit a theft.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Want and boredom are indeed the twin poles of human life.
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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Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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To be alone is the fate of all great minds—a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends, finally, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our consciousness and what we compare it to - better and we envious and sad, worse and we feel grateful and happy.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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He who lives to see two or three generations is like a man who sits some time in the conjurer's booth at a fair, and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession. The tricks were meant to be seen only once and when they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive, their effect is gone.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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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