"Each individual misfortune, to be sure, seems an exceptional occurence; but misfortune in general is the rule."
"...the negativity of well-being and happiness, in antithesis to the positivity of pain."
"...the most necessary of all things: tolerance, patience, forbearance and charity, which each of us needs and which each of us therefore owes."
"The scenes of our life resemble pictures in rough mosaic; they are ineffective from close up, and have to be viewed from a distance if they are to seem beautiful."
"We shall do best to think of life as a desengano, as a process of disillusionment: since this is, clearly enough, what everything that happens to us is calculated to produce."
"People who pass their lives in reading and acquire their wisdom from books are like those who learn about a country from travel descriptions: they can impart information about a great number of things, but at bottom they possess no collected, clear, thorough knowledge of what the country is like."
"For, as you know, religions are like glow-worms: they need darkness [blind faith] in order to shine."
"For the concept of justice is, like that of freedom, a negative concept: its content is a pure negation."
"So do not degrade your Muse to a whore."
"At the highest and hardest stage the tragic [drama] is aimed at: grievous suffering, the misery of existence is brought before us, and the final outcome is here the vanity of all human striving."
"If you want to know how you really feel about someone, take note of the impression an unexpected letter from him makes on you when you first see it on the doormat."
"It is not without meaning that mythology depicts Cronus as devouring and digesting stones: for that which is otherwise quite indigestible, all affliction, vexation, loss, grief, time alone digests."
"The dog is rightly the symbol of loyalty: in the plant-world, however, it should be the fir-tree. For it alone abides with us through bad times as well as good; it does not desert us when the sun does, like all other trees, plants, birds and insects -- to return only when the sky above us is blue again."
-- Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms
"...the negativity of well-being and happiness, in antithesis to the positivity of pain."
"...the most necessary of all things: tolerance, patience, forbearance and charity, which each of us needs and which each of us therefore owes."
"The scenes of our life resemble pictures in rough mosaic; they are ineffective from close up, and have to be viewed from a distance if they are to seem beautiful."
"We shall do best to think of life as a desengano, as a process of disillusionment: since this is, clearly enough, what everything that happens to us is calculated to produce."
"People who pass their lives in reading and acquire their wisdom from books are like those who learn about a country from travel descriptions: they can impart information about a great number of things, but at bottom they possess no collected, clear, thorough knowledge of what the country is like."
"For, as you know, religions are like glow-worms: they need darkness [blind faith] in order to shine."
"For the concept of justice is, like that of freedom, a negative concept: its content is a pure negation."
"So do not degrade your Muse to a whore."
"At the highest and hardest stage the tragic [drama] is aimed at: grievous suffering, the misery of existence is brought before us, and the final outcome is here the vanity of all human striving."
"If you want to know how you really feel about someone, take note of the impression an unexpected letter from him makes on you when you first see it on the doormat."
"It is not without meaning that mythology depicts Cronus as devouring and digesting stones: for that which is otherwise quite indigestible, all affliction, vexation, loss, grief, time alone digests."
"The dog is rightly the symbol of loyalty: in the plant-world, however, it should be the fir-tree. For it alone abides with us through bad times as well as good; it does not desert us when the sun does, like all other trees, plants, birds and insects -- to return only when the sky above us is blue again."
-- Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms
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