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Happiness of any given life is to be measured, not by its joys and pleasures, but by the extent to which it has been free from suffering-from positive evil.

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
Given
Extent
Life
Positive
Joy
Pleasure
Suffering
Happiness
Joys
Free
Measured
Evil
Pleasures

More quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

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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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As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.
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To call the world God is not to explain it it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym.
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Genius is to other gifts what the carbuncle is to the precious stones. It sends forth its own light, whereas other stones only reflect borrowed light.
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The reason domestic pets are so lovable and so helpful to us is because they enjoy, quietly and placidly, the present moment.
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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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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.
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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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Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.
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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.
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The old woman dies, the burden is lifted.
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It is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do
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He who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom.
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If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?
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Music is the melody whose text is the world.
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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The fourfold root of the principle of sufficent reason is Anything perceived has a cause. All conclusions have premises. All effects have causes. All actions have motives.
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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.
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A man finds himself, to his great astonishment, suddenly existing, after thousands and thousands of years of non-existence: he lives for a little while and then, again, comes an equally long period when he must exist no more. The heart rebels against this, and feels that it cannot be true.
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Every time a man is begotten and born, the clock of human life is wound up anew to repeat once more its same old tune that has already been played innumerable times, movement by movement and measure by measure, with insignificant variations.
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