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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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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.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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It is only a man's own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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If God made the world, I would not be that God, for the misery of the world would break my heart.
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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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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To free a man from error is to give, not to take away. Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth. Error always does harm sooner or later it will bring mischief to the man who harbors it.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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The common man is not concerned about the passage of time, the man of talent is driven by it.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Life is full of troubles and vexations, that one must either rise above it by means of corrected thoughts, or leave it.
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
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It is only in the microscope that our life looks so big.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Honor means that a man is not exceptional fame, that he is.
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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This actual world of what is knowable, in which we are and which is in us, remains both the material and the limit of our consideration.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Pride works _from within_ it is the direct appreciation of oneself. Vanity is the desire to arrive at this appreciation indirectly, from without.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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It is a clumsy experiment to make for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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How is it possible that suffering that is neither my own nor of my concern should immediately affect me as though it were my own, and with such force that is moves me to action?
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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It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Man is never happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which he thinks will make him so.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Mostly the loss teaches us only about the value of things.
Arthur Schopenhauer