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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
Given
Moments
Nothing
Thing
Life
Definite
Absolutely
Moment

More quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

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The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.
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 absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.
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Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination.
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There is not a grain of dust, not an atom that can become nothing, yet man believes that death is the annhilation of his being.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Intellect is invisible to the man who has none.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Were an Asiatic to ask me for a definition of Europe, I should be forced to answer him: It is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing, and that his present birth is his first entrance into life.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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One man is more concerned with the impression he makes on the rest of mankind, another with the impression the rest of mankind makes on him.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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To forgive and forget means to throw away dearly bought experience.
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A man may call to mind the face of his friend, but not his own. Here, then, is an initial difficulty in the way of applying the maxim, Know Thyself.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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I know of no more beautiful prayer than that which the Hindus of old used in closing: May all that have life be delivered from suffering.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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We should be surprised that a matter that generally plays such an important part in the life of man has hitherto been almost entirely disregarded by philosophers, and lies before us as raw and untreated material.
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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Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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A man's face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man's thoughts and aspirations.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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It is in the treatment of trifles that a person shows what they are.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Pride is generally censured and decried, but mainly by those who have nothing to be proud of.
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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Reading is a mere makeshift for original thinking.
Arthur Schopenhauer