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Reading
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Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can't expect an angel to look out.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Reform, Correction
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To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Relationships
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Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Religion
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Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Repetition
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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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Research
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Just as the largest library, badly arranged, is not so useful as a very moderate one that is well arranged, so the greatest amount of knowledge, if not elaborated by our own thoughts, is worth much less than a far smaller volume that has been abundantly and repeatedly thought over.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Revenge
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Vengeance taken will often tear the heart and torment the conscience.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Sacrifice
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It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Satisfaction
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Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Selfishness
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If we were not all so excessively interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Solitude
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A man can be himself only so long as he is alone.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Stubbornness
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Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Style
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Style is what gives value and currency to thoughts.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Suffering
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Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Suicide
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Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment -- a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man's existence and in his insight into the nature of things? 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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They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice; . . . that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Talent
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Talent is able to achieve what is beyond other people's capacity to achieve, yet not what is beyond their capacity of apprehension; therefore it at once finds its appreciators. The achievement of genius, on the other hand, transcends not only others' capacity of achievement, but also their capacity of apprehension; therefore they do not become immediately aware of it. Talent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like the marksman who hits a target, as far as which others cannot even see.
-Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (translated from German by E. F. J. Payne)
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Time
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Time is that in which all things pass away.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Truth
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Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self evident.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.
-Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena, vol. 2, ch. 1, sct. 17, 1851
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Will, Willpower
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Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Wisdom
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The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Women
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Only a male intellect clouded by the sexual drive could call the stunted, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged sex the fair sex.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Words
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A word too much always defeats its purpose.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
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Books by and about Arthur Schopenhauer