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All religions promise a reward beyond life, in eternity, for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding.

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
Promise
Excellences
Beyond
Pessimism
Head
Religions
Understanding
Reward
Heart
Excellence
Life
Rewards
Eternity
None

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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.
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Many books serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up.
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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.
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Honor means that a man is not exceptional fame, that he is. Fame is something which must be won honor, only something which must not be lost.
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It is only the man whose intellect is clouded by his sexual impulse that could give the name of the fair sex to that undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and short-legged race.
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All pantheism must ultimately be shipwrecked on the inescapable demands of ethics, and then on the evil and suffering of the world. If the world is a theophany , then everything done by man, and even by animal, is equally divine and excellent nothing can be more censurable and nothing more praiseworthy than anything else hence there is no ethics.
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Life is short and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.
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It is, indeed, only in old age that intellectual men attain their sublime expression, whilst portraits of them in their youth show only the first traces of it.
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The scenes and events of long ago, and the persons who took part in them, wear a charming aspect to the eye of memory, which sees only the outlines and takes no note of disagreeable details. The present enjoys no such advantage, and so it always seems defective.
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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.
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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 truth is that when an author begins to write for the sake of covering paper, he is cheating the reader because he writes under the pretext that he has something to say.
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A man's delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes.
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Religion is the metaphysics of the masses.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Empirical sciences prosecuted purely for their own sake, and without philosophic tendency are like a face without eyes.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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We deceive and flatter no one by such delicate artificies as we do our own selves.
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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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Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.
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The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.
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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.
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Men of learning are those who have read the contents of books. Thinkers, geniuses, and those who have enlightened the world and furthered the race of men, are those who have made direct use of the book of the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer