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We can do what we wish, but we can only wish what we must.

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
Must
Wish

More quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

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There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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It is the courage to make a clean breast of it in the face of every question that makes the philosopher.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner nor with his fate if the corner granted him allows of his following his vocation without having to think about other people.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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If a man sets out to hate all the miserable creatures he meets, he will not have much energy left for anything else whereas he can despise them, one and all, with the greatest ease.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Indeed, intolerance is essential only to monotheism an only God is by nature a jealous God who will not allow another to live. On the other hand, polytheistic gods are naturally tolerant, they live and let live.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Every truth passes through 3 stages before it is recognized 1)ridicule 2) opposition 3) accepted as self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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...nothing at all rides on the life or death of the individual.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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It is most important to allow the brain the full measure of sleep which is required to restore it for sleep is to a man's whole nature what winding up is to a clock.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Our moral virtues benefit mainly other people intellectual virtues, on the other hand, benefit primarily ourselves therefore the former make us universally popular, the latter unpopular.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Just as a stream flows smoothly on as long as it encounters no obstruction, so the nature of man and animal is such that we never really notice or become conscious of what is agreeable to our will if we are to notice something, our will has to have been thwarted, has to have experienced a shock of some kind.
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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Human life must be some form of mistake.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.
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.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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It is only in the microscope that our life looks so big.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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A word too much always defeats its purpose.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Life is neither to be wept over nor to be laughed at but to be understood.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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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?
Arthur Schopenhauer