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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.

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
Subjects
Write
Two
Firsts
First
Authors
Writing
Kinds
Kind
Subject
Sake

More quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

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A man can be himself only so long as he is alone.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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All the cruelty and torment of which the world is full is in fact merely the necessary result of the totality of the forms under which the will to live is objectified.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Whoever heard me assert that the grey cat playing just now in the yard is the same one that did jumps and tricks there five hundred years ago will think whatever he likes of me, but it is a stranger form of madness to imagine that the present-day cat is fundamentally an entirely different one.
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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Talent works for money and fame the motive which moves genius to productivity is, on the other hand, less easy to determine.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Console yourself by remembering that the world doesn't deserve your affection.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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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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Das Ganze der Erfahrung gleicht einer Geheimschrift und die Philosophie der Entzifferung derselben. The whole of experience is like a cryptograph, and philosophy is like the deciphering of it.
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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He who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom.
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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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.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Style is what gives value and currency to thoughts.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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When a new truth enters the world, the first stage of reaction to it is ridicule, the second stage is violent opposition, and in the third stage, that truth comes to be regarded as self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.
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 are three stages in the revelation of truth. The first is to be ridiculed, the second is to be resisted and the third is to be considered self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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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.
Arthur Schopenhauer