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It is not what things are objectively and in themselves, but what they are for us, in our way of looking at them, that makes us happy or the reverse.

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
Looking
Happy
Makes
Way
Things
Objectively
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More quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

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The inexpressible depth of music, so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain… Music expresses only the quintessence of life and its events, never these themselves.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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There are 80,000 prostitutes in London alone and what are they, if not bloody sacrifices on the altar of monogamy?
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alent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach genius is like the marksman who hits a target, as far as which others cannot even see.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Money is human happiness in the abstract.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The first forty years of our life give the text, the next thirty furnish the commentary upon it, which enables us rightly to understand the true meaning and connection of the text with its moral and its beauties.
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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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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Knowledge is to certain extent a second existence.
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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A writer should never be brief at the expense of being clear.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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We see in tragedy the noblest men, after a long conflict and suffering, finally renounce forever all the pleasure of life and the aims till then pursued so keenly, or cheerfully and willingly give up life itself.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Life to the great majority is only a constant struggle for mere existence, with the certainty of losing it at last.
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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He who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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I've never known any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Music is the melody whose text is the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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It is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do
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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If I maintain my silence about my secret it is my prisoner...if I let it slip from my tongue, I am ITS prisoner.
Arthur Schopenhauer