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You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing.

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
Nothing
Thing
Life
Definite
Absolutely
Moment
Given
Moments

More quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

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Memory works like the collection glass in the Camera obscura: it gathers everything together and therewith produces a far more beautiful picture than was present originally.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Will without intellect is the most vulgar and common thing in the world, possessed by every blockhead, who, in the gratification of his passions, shows the stuff of which he is made.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Human life must be some form of mistake.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Ist es an und fu? r sich absurd, das Nichtsein fu? r einUbel zu ? halten da jedes Ubel wie jedes Gut das Dasein zur Voraussetzung hat, ja sogar das Bewusstsein. It is in and by itself absurd to regard non-existence as an evil for every evil, like every good, presupposes existence, indeed even consciousness.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The reason domestic pets are so lovable and so helpful to us is because they enjoy, quietly and placidly, the present moment.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Want and boredom are indeed the twin poles of human life.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Our first ideas of life are generally taken from fiction rather than fact.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Money is human happiness in the abstract.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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It is only in the microscope that our life looks so big.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Every truth passes through 3 stages before it is recognized 1)ridicule 2) opposition 3) accepted as self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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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 . . .
Arthur Schopenhauer
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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.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Genius is to other gifts what the carbuncle is to the precious stones. It sends forth its own light, whereas other stones only reflect borrowed light.
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
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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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There is no vice of which a man can be guilty, no meanness, no shabbiness, no unkindness, which excites so much indignation among his contemporaries, friends and neighbours, as his success. This is the one unpardonable crime, which reason cannot defend, nor humility mitigate.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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In their hearts women think that it is men's business to earn money and theirs to spend it.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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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.
Arthur Schopenhauer