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Something of great importance now past is inferior to something of little importance now present, in that the latter is a reality, and related to the former as something to nothing.

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
Related
Great
Former
Something
Importance
Present
Reality
Past
Inferior
Littles
Inferiors
Little
Latter

More quotes by 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.
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Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
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If a person is stupid, we excuse him by saying that he cannot help it but if we attempted to excuse in precisely the same way the person who is bad, we should be laughed at.
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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.
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Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.
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Pride works _from within_ it is the direct appreciation of oneself. Vanity is the desire to arrive at this appreciation indirectly, from without.
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The weakness of their reasoning faculty also explains why women show more sympathy for the unfortunate than men... and why, on the contrary, they are inferior to men as regards justice, and less honourable and conscientious.
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The Universe is a dream dreamed by a single dreamer where all the dream characters dream too.
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Our first ideas of life are generally taken from fiction rather than fact.
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Pride is generally censured and decried, but mainly by those who have nothing to be proud of.
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Do not shorten the morning by getting up late look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred.
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There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake. The first kind have had thoughts or experiences which seem to them worth communicating, while the second kind need money and consequently write for money.
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Knowledge is to certain extent a second existence.
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The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin.
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If God made the world, I would not be that God, for the misery of the world would break my heart.
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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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To be shocked at how deeply rejection hurts is to ignore what acceptance involves. We must never allow our suffering to be compounded by suggestions that there is something odd in suffering so deeply. There would be something amiss if we didn't.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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We must set limits to our wishes, curb our desires, moderate our anger, always remembering that an individual can attain only an infinitesimal share in anything that is worth having and that on the other hand, everyone must incur many of the ills of life
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Gaiety alone, as it were, is the hard cash of happiness everything else is just a promissory note.
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