Quote

If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones for life is short, and time and energy limited.

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
Make
Ones
Good
Wants
Men
Books
Time
Point
Life
Read
Energy
Avoiding
Book
Limited
Must
Short

More quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

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there are very few who can think, but every man wants to have an opinion and what remains but to take it ready-made from others, instead of forming opinions for himself?
Arthur Schopenhauer
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A major difficulty in translation is that a word in one language seldom has a precise equivalent in another one.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Music is the melody whose text is the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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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.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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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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To use many words to communicate few thoughts is everywhere the unmistakable sign of mediocrity. To gather much thought into few words stamps the man of genius.
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.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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It is only when a man is alone that he is really free.
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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I have described religion as the metaphysics of the people.
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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On the path of actions, great heart is the chief recommendation on that works, a great head.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Vulgar people take huge delight in the faults and follies of great men.
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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Life is a language in which certain truths are conveyed to us if we could learn them in some other way, we should not live.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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I owe what is best in my own development to the impression made by Kant's works, the sacred writings of the Hindus, and Plato.
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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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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Our civilized world is nothing but a great masquerade. You encounter knights, parsons, soldiers, doctors, lawyers, priests, philosophers and a thousand more: but they are not what they appear - they are merely masks... Usually, as I say, there is nothing but industrialists, businessmen and speculators concealed behind all these masks.
Arthur Schopenhauer