Schopenhauer Pessimism Quotes & Sayings

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

Every human perfection is allied to a defect into which it threatens to pass, but it is also true that every defect is allied to a perfection. — Arthur Schopenhauer

There is nothing to be got in the world anywhere; privation and pain pervade it, and boredom lies in wait at every corner for those who have escaped them. Moreover, wickedness usually reigns, and folly does all the talking. Fate is cruel, and human beings are pathetic. — Arthur Schopenhauer

I never smoked a cigarette until I was nine. — H.L. Mencken

[Nietzsche inveighs] against every sort of historical optimism; but he energetically repudiates the ordinary pessimism, which is the result of degenerate or enfeebled instincts of decadence. He preaches with youthful enthusiasm the triumph of a tragic culture, introduced by an intrepid rising generation, in which the spirit of ancient Greece might be born again. He rejects the pessimism of Schopenhauer, for he already abhors all renunciation; but he seeks a pessimism of healthiness, one derived from strength, from exuberant power, and he believes he has found it in the Greeks. — Georg Brandes

The logic of pessimism moves through three refusals: a no-saying to the worst (refusal of the world-for-us, or Schopenhauer's tears); a yes-saying to the worst (refusal of the world-in-itself, or Nietzsche's laughter); and a no-saying to the for-us and the in-itself (a double refusal, or Cioran's sleep).

Crying, laughing, sleeping - what other responses are adequate to a life that is so indifferent? — Eugene Thacker

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

Artists probably should have some impenetrable aspects of themselves. — Simon Callow

You need to accept your greatness, you need to rise up into your full stature, because if you don't, you are going to continually bow down low to enter into the caves of those who would have you believing that you were born for caves; when in fact, those are their caves and they were born for them. You think that you're not allowed to stand tall in your mind, heart and body - but you are! And when you do, you'll see how little those caves and the people in them, really are. It's difficult, because you want everyone to matter, but really, most of them just don't. Only a few do. Most of them aren't even worth being mad at. — C. JoyBell C.

If God made this world, then i would not want to be the God. It is full of misery and distress that it breaks my heart. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Time is not at all what it seems. It does not flow in only one direction, and the future exists simultaneously with the past. — Albert Einstein

Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but also a disruption of thought. — Arthur Schopenhauer

He's created a freaking ice cream sundae with extra-hot fudge just by uttering my name. — Shanora Williams

Schopenhauer has analysed the pessimism that characterize modern thought, but Hamlet invented it — Oscar Wilde

The bad thing about all religions is that, instead of being able to confess their allegorical nature, they have to conceal it. — Arthur Schopenhauer

There is not much to be got anywhere in the world. It is filled with misery and pain; if a man escapes these, boredeom lies in wait for him at every corner. Nay more; it is evil which generally has the upper hand, and folly that makes the most noise. Fate is cruel and mankind pitiable. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Of how many a man may it not be said that hope made a fool of him until he danced into the arms of death! — Arthur Schopenhauer

Reason is feminine in nature; it can only give after it has received. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Lastly, we need to know the strength of gravity on Dagobah. Here, I figure I'm stuck, because while sci-fi fans are obsessive, it's not like there's gonna be a catalog of minor geophysical characteristics for every planet visited in Star Wars. Right? Nope. I've underestimated the fandom. Wookieepeedia has just such a catalog, — Randall Munroe

Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.
Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Horror hostess, bondage goddess, Charles Addams cartoon comes to life, Vampire was every first-generation fanboy's wet dream. Scott Poole takes us on an unforgettable ride through the overlapping underworlds of B&D magazines, Hollywood noir, and early political liberation movements that inspired actress Maila Nurmi to challenge a postwar culture bent on stifling women's choices, bodies, and desires. This book is a subversive masterpiece. — Sheri Holman

The best consolation in misfortune or affliction of any kind will be the thought of other people who are in a still worse plight than yourself; and this is a form of consolation open to every one. But what an awful fate this means for mankind as a whole! We are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher, who chooses out first one and then another for his prey. — Arthur Schopenhauer

HBO exists because people must have a place to say "f***" on television as many times as they can. — Tom Snyder

For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible — Arthur Schopenhauer