Arthur Schopenhauer citations (279 citations, Page 7)

Et un proverbe arabe dit : "à l'arbre du silence est accroché son fruit : la paix."
desipere est juris gentium.
La Dialectique éristique publiée en Français sous le titre L'Art d'avoir toujours raison, 1830

“Si l’on s’aperçoit que l’adversaire est supérieur et que l’on ne va pas gagner, il faut tenir des propos désobligeants, blessants et grossiers. Être désobligeant, cela consiste à quitter l’objet de la querelle (puisqu’on a perdu la partie) pour passer à l’adversaire, et à l’attaquer d’une manière ou d’une autre dans ce qu’il est : on pourrait appeler cela l’argumentum ad personam
pour faire la différence avec l’argumentum ad hominem. »”

Arthur Schopenhauer

La Dialectique éristique publiée en Français sous le titre L'Art d'avoir toujours raison, 1830

“La Solitude offre à l'homme intellectuellement haut placé un double avantage : le premier, d'être avec soi-même, et le second, de ne pas être avec les autres. On appréciera hautement ce dernier si l'on réfléchit à tout ce que le commerce du monde apporte avec soi de contraintes, de peines et même de dangers. "Tout notre malheur vient de ne pouvoir être seuls", a dit La Bruyère.
La sociabilité appartient aux penchants dangereux et pernicieux, car elle nous met en contact avec des êtres qui en grande majorité sont moralement mauvais et intellectuellement bornés ou détraqués. L'homme insociable est celui qui n'a pas besoin de tous ces gens-là. Avoir suffisamment en soi pour pouvoir se passer de société est déjà un grand bonheur, par la même que presque tous nos mauvais dérivent de la société, et que la tranquilité d'esprit qui, après la santé, forme l'essentiel de notre bonheur, y est mise en péril et ne peut exister sans de longs moments de solitude.”

Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer: Citations en anglais

“On the other hand, the cheapest form of pride is national pride; for the man affected therewith betrays a want of individual qualities of which he might be proud, since he would not otherwise resort to that which he shares with so many millions. The man who possesses outstanding personal qualities will rather see most clearly the faults of his own nation, for he has them constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool, who has nothing in the world whereof he could be proud, resorts finally to being proud of the very nation to which he belongs. In this he finds compensation and is now ready and thankful to defend, … all the faults and follies peculiar to it.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Aphorismes sur la sagesse dans la vie

From 'Parerga and Paralipomena', Vol. 1, Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life, 'What A Man Represents', pp. 360
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

“For the purpose of acquiring gain, everything else is pushed aside or thrown overboard, for example, as is philosophy by the professors of philosophy.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Aphorismes sur la sagesse dans la vie

E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 347
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

“A man who has no mental needs, because his intellect is of the narrow and normal amount, is, in the strict sense of the word, what is called a philistine.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer

Personality; or, What a Man Is
Essays

“A man’s body and the needs of his body are now everywhere treated with a tender indulgence. Is the thinking mind then, to be the only thing that is never to obtain the slightest measure of consideration or protection, to say nothing of respect?”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Parerga and Paralipomena

“On Noise”
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)

“University professors, restricted in this way, are quite happy about the matter, for their real concern is to earn with credit an honest livelihood for themselves and also for their wives and children and moreover to enjoy a certain prestige in the eyes of the public. On the other hand, the deeply stirred mind of the real philosopher, whose whole concern is to look for the key to our existence, as mysterious as it is precarious, is regarded by them as something mythological, if indeed the man so affected does not even appear to them to be obsessed by a monomania, should he ever be met with among them. For that a man could really be in dead earnest about philosophy does not as a rule occur to anyone, least of all to a lecturer thereon; just as the most sceptical Christian is usually the Pope. It has, therefore, been one of the rarest events for a genuine philosopher to be at the same time a lecturer in philosophy.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Parerga and Paralipomena

Inzwischen bleiben die solchermaaßen beschränkten Universitätsphilosophie bei der Sache ganz wohlgemuth; weil ihr eigentlicher Ernst darin liegt, mit Ehren ein redliches Auskommen für sich, nebst Weib und Kind, zu erwerben, auch ein gewisses Ansehn vor den Leuten zu genießen; hingegen das tiefbewegte Gemüth eines wirklichen Philosophen, dessen ganzer und großer Ernst im Aufsuchen eines Schlüssels zu unserm, so rätselhaften wie mißlichen Daseyn liegt, von ihnen zu den mythologischen Wesen gezählt wird; wenn nicht etwa» gar der damit Behaftete, sollte er ihnen je vorkommen, ihnen als von Monomanie besessen erscheint. Denn daß es mit der Philosophie so recht eigentlicher, bitterer Ernst seyn könne, läßt wohl, in der Regel, kein Mensch sich weniger träumen, als ein Docent derselben; gleichwie der ungläubigste Christ der Papst zu seyn pflegt. Daher gehört es denn auch zu den seltensten Fällen, daß ein wirklicher Philosoph zugleich ein Docent der Philosophie gewesen wäre.
Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, p. 153, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 141
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), On Philosophy in the Universities

“A book can never be anything more than the impression of its author’s thoughts.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer

The value of these thoughts lies either in the matter about which he has thought, or in the form in which he develops his matter — that is to say, what he has thought about it.
Essays, On Authorship and Style

“We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Parerga and Paralipomena

Vol. 2, Ch. 26, sect. 311a
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims

“From the fundamental nature of the Philistine, it follows that, in regard to others, as he has no intellectual but only physical needs, he will seek those who are capable of satisfying the latter not the former. And so of all the demands he makes of others the very smallest will be that of any outstanding intellectual abilities. On the contrary, when he comes across these they will excite his antipathy and even hatred. For here he has a hateful feeling of inferiority and also a dull secret envy which he most carefully attempts to conceal even from himself; but in this way it grows sometimes into a feeling of secret rage and rancour. Therefore it will never occur to him to assess his own esteem and respect in accordance with such qualities, but they will remain exclusively reserved for rank and wealth, power and influence, as being in his eyes the only real advantages to excel in which is also his desire.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Aphorismes sur la sagesse dans la vie

E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 344–345
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

“National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Aphorismes sur la sagesse dans la vie

Variant translation: Every nation criticizes every other one — and they are all correct.
As quoted by Wolfgang Pauli in a letter to Abraham Pais (17 August 1950) published in The Genius of Science (2000) by Abraham Pais, p. 242
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

“At the age of five years to enter a spinning-cotton or other factory, and from that time forth to sit there daily, first ten, then twelve, and ultimately fourteen hours, performing the same mechanical labour, is to purchase dearly the satisfaction of drawing breath. But this is the fate of millions, and that of millions more is analogous to it.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre The World as Will and Representation

Vol II: "On the Vanity and Suffering of Life", as translated by R. B. Haldane, and J. Kemp in The World as Will and Idea (1886), p. 389
The World as Will and Representation (1819; 1844; 1859)

“Only a male intellect clouded by the sexual drive could call the stunted, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged sex the fair sex.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Parerga and Paralipomena

Vol. 2, Ch. 27, § 369
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims

“Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Parerga and Paralipomena

Vol. 2 "On Women" as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims

“The little honesty that exists among authors is discernible in the unconscionable way they misquote from the writings of others.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer

Essays, On Authorship and Style

“And now that I have allowed myself the jest to which in this two-sided life hardly any page can be too serious to grant a place, I part with the book with deep seriousness, in the sure hope that sooner or later it will reach those to whom alone it can be addressed; and for the rest, patiently resigned that the same fate should, in full measure, befall it, that in all ages has, to some extent, befallen all knowledge, and especially the weightiest knowledge of the truth, to which only a brief triumph is allotted between the two long periods in which it is condemned as paradoxical or disparaged as trivial. The former fate is also wont to befall its author. But life is short, and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre The World as Will and Representation

:s:The World as Will and Representation/Preface to the First Edition, last paragraph. Mostly quoted rather incorrectly as: All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Und so, nachdem ich mir den Scherz erlaubt, dem eine Stelle zu gönnen, in diesem durchweg zweideutigen Leben kaum irgend ein Blatt zu ernsthaft seyn kann, gebe ich mit innigem Ernst das Buch hin, in der Zuversicht, daß es früh oder spät diejenigen erreichen wird, an welche es allein gerichtet seyn kann, und übrigens gelassen darin ergeben, daß auch ihm in vollem Maaße das Schicksal werde, welches in jeder Erkenntniß, also um so mehr in der wichtigsten, allezeit der Wahrheit zu Theil ward, der nur ein kurzes Siegesfest beschieden ist, zwischen den beiden langen Zeiträumen, wo sie als paradox verdammt und als trivial geringgeschätzt wird. Auch pflegt das erstere Schicksal ihren Urheber mitzutreffen.— Aber das Leben ist kurz und die Wahrheit wirkt ferne und lebt lange: sagen wir die Wahrheit. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Leipzig 1819. Vorrede. p.XVI books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=0HsPAAAAQAAJ&pg=PR16 The World as Will and Representation (1819; 1844; 1859)

“What now on the other hand makes people sociable is their incapacity to endure solitude and thus themselves.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Aphorismes sur la sagesse dans la vie

Was nun andrerseits die Menschen gesellig macht, ist ihre Unfähigkeit, die Einsamkeit und in dieser sich selbst zu ertragen.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

“A government will not pay people to contradict directly, or even only indirectly, what it has had promulgated from all the pulpits by thousands of its appointed priests or religious teachers. … Hence the maxim improbant secus docentes [We reject and condemn the man who teaches something different].”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Parerga and Paralipomena

Zuvörderst nämlich wird eine Regierung nicht Leute besolden, um Dem, was sie durch tausend von ihr angestellte Priester, oder Religionslehrer, von allen Kanzeln verkünden läßt, direkt, oder auch nur indirekt, zu widersprechen. … Daher der Grundsatz improbant secus docentes.
Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, pp. 152–153, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 139
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), On Philosophy in the Universities

“The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Parerga and Paralipomena

Vol. 2, Ch. 1, § 1
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims

“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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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Aphorismes sur la sagesse dans la vie

E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 348
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

“If a big diamond is cut up into pieces, it immediately loses its value as a whole; or if an army is scattered or divided into small bodies, it loses all its power; and in the same way a great intellect has no more power than an ordinary one as soon as it is interrupted, disturbed, distracted, or diverted; for its superiority entails that it concentrates all its strength on one point and object, just as a concave mirror concentrates all the rays of light thrown upon it. Noisy interruption prevents this concentration. This is why the most eminent intellects have always been strongly averse to any kind of disturbance, interruption and distraction, and above everything to that violent interruption which is caused by noise; other people do not take any particular notice of this sort of thing.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer

On Noise
Essays

“As my own father was sick, and miserably tied to his invalid's chair, he would have been abandoned had not an old servant performed for him a so-called service of love. My mother gave parties while he was perishing in solitude, and amused herself while he was suffering bitter agonies”

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Arthur Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy by Rüdiger Safranski (trans. Ewald Osers)
Other

“A man of intellect is like an artist who gives a concert without any help from anyone else, playing on a single instrument — a piano, say, which is a little orchestra in itself. Such a man is a little world in himself; and the effect produced by various instruments together, he produces single-handed, in the unity of his own consciousness. Like the piano, he has no place in a symphony; he is a soloist and performs by himself — in solitude, it may be; or if in the company with other instruments, only as principal; or for setting the tone, as in singing.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Parerga and Paralipomena

Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims

“The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre The World as Will and Representation

Vol. I, Ch. II
The World as Will and Representation (1819; 1844; 1859)

“A man’s face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man’s thoughts and aspirations.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Parerga and Paralipomena

Vol. 2, Ch. 29, § 377
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims

“Epicurus, the great teacher of happiness, has correctly and finely divided human needs into three classes. First there are the natural and necessary needs which, if they are not satisfied, cause pain. Consequently, they are only victus et amictus [food and clothing] and are easy to satisfy. Then we have those that are natural yet not necessary, that is, the needs for sexual satisfaction. … These needs are more difficult to satisfy. Finally, there are those that are neither natural nor necessary, the needs for luxury, extravagance, pomp, and splendour, which are without end and very difficult to satisfy.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Aphorismes sur la sagesse dans la vie

E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 346
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

“There are 80,000 prostitutes in London alone and what are they, if not bloody sacrifices on the altar of monogamy?”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Parerga and Paralipomena

"Of Women"
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Studies in Pessimism

“Chair-philosophy is burdened with the disadvantage which philosophy as a profession imposes on philosophy as the free investigation of truth, or which philosophy by government order imposes on philosophy in the name of nature and mankind.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Parerga and Paralipomena

Ueberhaupt aber bin ich allmälig der Meinung geworden, daß der erwähnte Nutzen der Kathederphilosophie von dem Nachtheil überwogen werde, den die Philosophie als Profession der Philosophie als freier Wahrheitsforschung, oder die Philosophie im Auftrage der Regierung der Philosophie im Auftrage der Natur und der Menschheit bringt.
Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, p. 151, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 139
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), On Philosophy in the Universities

“Life is a business that does not cover the costs.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre The World as Will and Representation

Vol II "On the Vanity and Suffering of Life"
The World as Will and Representation (1819; 1844; 1859)

“Boundless compassion for all living beings is the surest and most certain guarantee of pure moral conduct, and needs no casuistry. Whoever is filled with it will assuredly injure no one, do harm to no one, encroach on no man's rights; he will rather have regard for every one, forgive every one, help every one as far as he can, and all his actions will bear the stamp of justice and loving-kindness. … In former times the English plays used to finish with a petition for the King. The old Indian dramas close with these words: "May all living beings be delivered from pain."”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre On the Basis of Morality

Tastes differ; but in my opinion there is no more beautiful prayer than this. Part III, Ch. VIII, 4, pp. 213 https://archive.org/stream/basisofmorality00schoiala#page/213/mode/2up-214 First line often paraphrased as: Compassion is the basis of all morality. On the Basis of Morality (1840)

“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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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Parerga and Paralipomena

Vol. 2, Ch. 19, § 233
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims

“People who originally have no means but are ultimately able to earn a great deal, through whatever talents they may possess, almost always come to think that these are permanent capital and that what they gain through them is interest. Accordingly, they do not put aside part of their earnings to form a permanent capital, but spend their money as fast as they earn it. But they are then often reduced to poverty because their earnings decrease or come to an end after their talent, which was of a transitory nature, is exhausted, as happens, for example, in the case of almost all the fine arts; or because it could be brought to bear only under a particular set of circumstances that has ceased to exist.”

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Arthur Schopenhauer livre Aphorismes sur la sagesse dans la vie

E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 348
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life