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Genius is an intellect that has become unfaithful to its destiny.

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
Unfaithful
Intellect
Destiny
Genius
Become

More quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

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To truth only a brief celebration of victory is allowed between the two long periods during which it is condemned as paradoxical, or disparaged as trivial.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Every genius is a great child he gazes out at the world as something strange, a spectacle, and therefore with purely objective interest
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To be alone is the fate of all great minds—a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils.
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It is a wise thing to be polite consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. For politeness is like a counter--an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy.
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A man of genius can hardly be sociable, for what dialogues could indeed be so intelligent and entertaining as his own monologues?
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Mensch kann tun was er will er kann aber nicht wollen was er will. (One can choose what to do, but not what to want.)
Arthur Schopenhauer
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For whence did Dante take the materials for his hell but from this our actual world? And yet he made a very proper hell of it.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Every human perfection is linked to an error which it threatens to turn into
Arthur Schopenhauer
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You must treat a work of art like a great man: stand before it and wait patiently till it deigns to speak.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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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.
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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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Means at our disposal should be regarded as a bulwark against the many evils and misfortunes that can occur. We should not regard such wealth as a permission or even an obligation to procure for ourselves the pleasures of the world.
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A word too much always defeats its purpose.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The truth can wait, for it lives a long life.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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That human life must be some kind of mistake is sufficiently proved by the simple observation that man is a compound of needs which are hard to satisfy that their satisfaction achieves nothing but a painless condition in which he is only given over to boredom . . .
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.
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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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.
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