The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims Quotes

“A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims

“It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. For politeness is like a counter--an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims

“There is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the world as a kind of Hell, and in confining one's efforts to securing a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims

“He who can see truly in the midst of general infatuation is like a man whose watch keeps good time, when all clocks in the town in which he lives are wrong. He alone knows the right time; what use is that to him?”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims

“There is one thing that, more than any other, throws people absolutely off their balance — the thought that you are dependent upon them. This is sure to produce an insolent and domineering manner towards you. There are some people, indeed, who become rude if you enter into any kind of relation with them; for instance, if you have occasion to converse with them frequently upon confidential matters, they soon come to fancy that they can take liberties with you, and so they try and transgress the laws of politeness. This is why there are so few with whom you care to become more intimate, and why you should avoid familiarity with vulgar people. If a man comes to think that I am more dependent upon him than he is upon me, he at once feels as though I had stolen something from him; and his endeavor will be to have his vengeance and get it back. The only way to attain superiority in dealing with men, is to let it be seen that you are independent of them.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims

“Men are like children, in that, if you spoil them, they become naughty. Therefore it is well not to be too indulgent or charitable with anyone. You may take it as a general rule that you will not lose a friend by refusing him a loan, but that you are very likely to do so by granting it; and, for similar reasons, you will not readily alienate people by being somewhat proud and careless in your behavior; but if you are very kind and complaisant towards them, you will often make them arrogant and intolerable, and so a breach will ensue.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims

“The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims

“This is in the highest degree the case with many of Goethe's and Byron's poems, which are obviously founded upon actual facts; where it is open to a foolish reader to envy the poet because so many delightful things happened to him, instead of envying that mighty power of phantasy which was capable of turning a fairly common experience into something so great and beautiful.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims

“Em qualquer parte do mundo, não há muito a buscar: a miséria e a dor preenchem-no, e aqueles que lhes escaparam são espreitados em todos os cantos pelo tédio. Além do mais, via de regra, impera no mundo a malvadez, e a insensatez fala mais alto. O destino é cruel e os homens são deploráveis.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims

“It is the upper classes, people of wealth, who are the greatest victims of boredom. Lucretius long ago described their miserable state, and the truth of his description may be still recognized to-day, in the life of every great capital—where the rich man is seldom in his own halls, because it bores him to be there, and still he returns thither, because he is no better off outside;—or else he is away in post-haste to his house in the country, as if it were on fire; and he is no sooner arrived there, than he is bored again, and seeks to forget everything in sleep, or else hurries back to town once more”
― Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims