37 Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes on Psychology

Arthur Schopenhauer quotes on psychology

2. Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.

4. We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.

15. Every time a man is begotten and born, the clock of human life is wound up anew to repeat once more its same old tune that has already been played innumerable times, movement by movement and measure by measure, with insignificant variations.

16. There is only one inborn erroneous notion ... that we exist in order to be happy ... So long as we persist in this inborn error ... the world seems to us full of contradictions. For at every step, in great things and small, we are bound to experience that the world and life are certainly not arranged for the purpose of maintaining a happy existence ... hence the countenances of almost all elderly persons wear the expression of ... disappointment.

23. Pride is an established conviction of one's own paramount worth in some particular respect, while vanity is the desire of rousing such a conviction in others, and it is generally accompanied by the secret hope of ultimately coming to the same conviction oneself. Pride works from within; it is the direct appreciation of oneself. Vanity is the desire to arrive at this appreciation indirectly, from without.

26. A reproach can only hurt if it hits the mark. Whoever knows that he does not deserve a reproach can treat it with contempt.

30. Im allgemeinen freilich haben die Weisen aller Zeiten immer dasselbe gesagt, und die Toren, d.h. die unermessliche Majoritat aller Zeiten, haben immer dasselbe, namlich das Gegenteil getan; und so wird es denn auch ferner bleiben.

31. Die Erinnerung wirkt wie das Sammlungsglas in der Camera obscura: Sie zieht alles zusammen und bringt dadurch ein viel schoneres Bild hervor, als sein Original ist.

32. Alles, alles kann einer vergessen, nur nicht sich selbst, sein eigenes Wesen.

33. Zu unserer Besserung bedurfen wir eines Spiegels.

34. Meistens belehrt uns erst der Verlust uber den Wert der Dinge.

35. Je weniger einer, in Folge objektiver oder subjektiver Bedingungen, notig hat, mit den Menschen in Beruhrung zu kommen, desto besser ist er daran.

36. Was nun andrerseits die Menschen gesellig macht, ist ihre Unfahigkeit, die Einsamkeit und in dieser sich selbst zu ertragen.

50. * Hatred is a thing of the heart, contempt a thing of the head. Hatred and contempt are decidedly antagonistic towards one another and mutually exclusive. A great deal of hatred, indeed, has no other source than a compelled respect for the superior qualities of some other person; conversely, if you were to consider hating every miserable wretch you met you would have your work cut out: it is much easier to despise them one and all. True, genuine contempt, which is the obverse of true, genuine pride, stays hidden away in secret and lets no one suspect its existence: for if you let a person you despise notice the fact, you thereby reveal a certain respect for him, inasmuch as you want him to know how low you rate him - which betrays not contempt but hatred, which excludes contempt and only affects it. Genuine contempt, on the other hand, is the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another.

53. 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.

54. Money is human happiness in the abstract: he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes his heart entirely to money.

55. Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.

58. 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.

59. That the outer man is a picture of the inner, and the face an expression and revelation of the whole character, is a presumption likely enough in itself, and therefore a safe one to go on; borne out as it is by the fact that people are always anxious to see anyone who has made himself famous .... Photography ... offers the most complete satisfaction of our curiosity.

62. The animals are much more content with mere existence than we are; the plants are wholly so; and man is so according to how dull and insensitive he is. The animal's life consequently contains less suffering but also less pleasure than the human's, the direct reason being that on the one hand it is free from care and anxiety and the torments that attend them, but on the other is without hope and therefore has no share in that anticipation of a happy future which, together with the enchanting products of the imagination which accompany it, is the source of most of our greatest joys and pleasures. The animal lacks both anxiety and hope because its consciousness is restricted to what is clearly evident and thus to the present moment: the animal is the present incarnate.

63. Talent works for money and fame; the motive which moves genius to productivity is, on the other hand, less easy to determine. It isn't money, for genius seldom gets any. It isn't fame: fame is too uncertain and, more closely considered, of too little worth. Nor is it strictly for its own pleasure, for the great exertion involved almost outweighs the pleasure. It is rather an instinct of a unique sort by virtue of which the individual possessed of genius is impelled to express what he has seen and felt in enduring works without being conscious of any further motivation. It takes place, by and large, with the same sort of necessity as a tree brings forth fruit, and demands of the world no more than a soil on which the individual can flourish.

65. Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.

70. In youth it is the outward aspect of things that most engages us; while in age, thought or reflection is the predominating quality of the mind. Hence, youth is the time for poetry, and age is more inclined to philosophy. In practical affairs it is the same: a man shapes his resolutions in youth more by the impression that the outward world makes upon him; whereas, when he is old, it is thought that determines his actions.

73. Hatred comes from the heart; contempt from the head; and neither feeling is quite within our control.

74. Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

76. Dissimulation is innate in woman, and almost as much a quality of the stupid as of the clever.

80. Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

92. Alles Wollen entspringt aus Bedurfnis, also aus Mangel, also aus Leiden.

104. I was very fond of them, if only they would have had me.

105. If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.

110. Mankind cannot get on without a certain amount of absurdity.

114. The less a man is forced to come into contact with others, the better off he is.

116. There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted.

123. What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction. Deceptive images of a vague happiness hover before us in our dreams ... and we search in vain for their original ... Much would have been gained if through timely advice and instruction young people could have had eradicated from their minds the erroneous notion that the world has a great deal to offer them.

124. Whoever attaches a lot of value to the opinions of others pays them too much honor.

127. Ich glaube nicht an die Freiheit des Willens. Schopenhauers Wort: >Der Mensch kann wohl tun was er will, aber er kann nicht wollen, was er will.< begleitet mich in allen Lebenslagen und versohnt mich mit den Handlungen der Menschen, auch wenn sie mir recht schmerzlich sind. Diese Erkenntnis von der Unfreiheit des Willens schutzt mich davor, mich selbst und die Mitmenschen als handelnde und urteilende Individuen allzu ernst zu nehmen und den guten Humor zu verlieren.

132. We are struck by the psychological force and even fierceness with which he reveals the deepest recesses of the human heart.