The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life

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• "a man is in himself, what accompanies him when he is alone, what no one can give or take away"
• "The only thing that stands in our power to achieve, is to make the most advantageous use possible of the personal qualities we possess"
• "Ordinary people think merely how they shall spend their time; a man of any talent tries to use it."
• "the same external events or circumstances affect no two people alike; even with perfectly similar surroundings every one lives in a world of his own"
•  "The world in which a man lives shapes itself chiefly by the way in which he looks at it, and so it proves different to different men; to one it is barren, dull, and superficial; to another rich, interesting, and full of meaning."
• "every man is pent up within the limits of his own consciousness"
• "the highest, most varied and lasting pleasures are those of the mind"
• "the wise in all ages have always said the same thing, and the fools, who at all times form the immense majority, have in their way too acted alike, and done just the opposite; and so it will continue"
• "as Voltaire says, we shall leave this world as foolish and as wicked as we found it on our arrival"
• "Metrodorus, the earliest disciple of Epicurus, who wrote as the title of one of his chapters, The happiness we receive from ourselves is greater than that which we obtain from our surroundings"
• "the principal element in a man's well-being, indeed, in the whole tenor of his existence, is what he is made of his inner constitution"
• "to a blunt intelligence the fairest and best object in the world presents only a poor reality, and is therefore only poorly appreciated"
• "Since everything which exists or happens for a man exists only in his consciousness and happens for it alone, the most essential thing for a man is the constitution of this consciousness, which is in most cases far more important than the circumstances which go to form its contents."
• "All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of Cervantes writing his Don Quixote in a miserable prison."
• "happiness depends in a great degree upon what we are, upon our individuality, whilst lot or destiny is generally taken to mean only what we have"
• "the subjective element in life is incomparably more important for our happiness and pleasure than the objective"
• "Health outweighs all other blessings so much that one may really say that a healthy beggar is happier than an ailing king."
• "A quiet and cheerful temperament, happy in the enjoyment of a perfectly sound physique, an intellect clear, lively, penetrating and seeing things as they are, a moderate and gentle will, and therefore a good conscience--these are privileges which no rank or wealth can make up for or replace."
• "An intellectual man in complete solitude has excellent entertainment in his own thoughts and fancies, while no amount of diversity or social pleasure, theatres, excursions and amusements, can ward off boredom from a dullard."
• "and when Socrates saw various articles of luxury spread out for sale, he exclaimed: How much there is in the world I do not want."
• "the all-powerful agent, Time, comes in and claims its rights"
• "So musst du sein, dir kannst du nicht entfliehen" Goethe; himself a man can never escape
• "Wealth, in the strict sense of the word, that is, great superfluity, can do little for our happiness"
• "the possession of wealth can achieve has a very small influence upon our happiness, in the proper sense of the word; indeed, wealth rather disturbs it, because the preservation of property entails a great many unavoidable anxieties"
• "Their minds are vacant, their imagination dull, their spirits poor, and so they are driven to the company of those like them--for _similis simili gaudet_--where they make common pursuit of pastime and entertainment, consisting for the most part in sensual pleasure"
• "the mind is empty and void, and so the man is bored with existence"
• "sent forth into the world outwardly rich but inwardly poor, and his vain endeavor was to make his external wealth compensate for his inner poverty"
• "not "he enjoys Paris," but "he enjoys himself in Paris." ' "
• "less depends upon what befalls us than upon the way in which it is met"
• "Aristotle says: It is not wealth but character that lasts (Greek: hae gar phusis bebion ou ta chraemata)"
• "The man who is cheerful and merry has always a good reason for being so,--the fact, namely, that he is"
• "beings like us, whose existence is but an infinitesimal moment between two eternities"
• "Aristotle rightly says, Life is movement; it is its very essence."
• "Even trees must be shaken by the wind, if they are to thrive."
• "It is not what things are objectively and in themselves, but what they are for us"
• "As Epictetus says, Men are not influenced by things, but by their thoughts about things."
• "good health is by far the most important element in human happiness. It follows from all this that the greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness, whatever it may be, for gain, advancement, learning or fame, let alone, then, for fleeting sensual pleasures. Everything else should rather be postponed to it."
• "hardly any evil is entirely without its compensation"
• "Beauty is an open letter of recommendation, predisposing the heart to favor the person who presents it."
• "the two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom"
• "Nothing is so good a protection against such misery as inward wealth, the wealth of the mind, because the greater it grows, the less room it leaves for boredom. The inexhaustible activity of thought!"
• "this high degree of intelligence is rooted in a high degree of susceptibility, greater strength of will, greater passionateness; and from the union of these qualities comes an increased capacity for emotion, an enhanced sensibility to all mental and even bodily pain, greater impatience of obstacles, greater resentment of interruption;--all of which tendencies are augmented by the power of the imagination"
• "The wise man will, above all, strive after freedom from pain and annoyance, quiet and leisure, consequently a tranquil, modest life, with as few encounters as may be; and so, after a little experience of his so-called fellowmen, he will elect to live in retirement, or even, if he is a man of great intellect, in solitude."
• "the more a man has in himself, the less he will want from other people, the less, indeed, other people can be to him"
• "This is why a high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial."
• "The life of a fool is worse than death"
• "as Ariosto observes, how miserable are the idle hours of ignorant men! (ozio lungo d'uomini ignoranti)"
• "in all countries the chief occupation of society is card-playing, and it is the gauge of its value, and an outward sign that it is bankrupt in thought. Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards"
• "leisure is the flower, or rather the fruit, of existence, as it puts a man into possession of himself, those are happy indeed who possess something real in themselves"
• "as no land is so well off as that which requires few imports, or none at all, so the happiest man is one who has enough in his own inner wealth, and requires little or nothing from outside for his maintenance, for imports are expensive things, reveal dependence, entail danger, occasion trouble, and when all is said and done, are a poor substitute for home produce."
• "No man ought to expect much from others, or, in general, from the external world."
• "What one human being can be to another is not a very great deal: in the end every one stands alone, and the important thing is who it is that stands alone."
• "Aristotle says, "To be happy means to be self-sufficient". For all other sources of happiness are in their nature most uncertain, precarious, fleeting, the sport of chance"
• "Fate is cruel, and mankind is pitiable. In such a world as this, a man who is rich in himself is like a bright, warm, happy room at Christmastide, while without are the frost and snow of a December night. Therefore, without doubt, the happiest destiny on earth is to have the rare gift of a rich individuality, and, more especially to be possessed of a good endowment of intellect"
• "The highest product of Nature is the clearest degree of consciousness, in which the world mirrors itself more plainly and completely than anywhere else."
• "For all the wit there is in the world is useless to him who has none."
• "The ordinary man places his life's happiness in things external to him, in property, rank, wife and children, friends, society, and the like, so that when he loses them or finds them disappointing, the foundation of his happiness is destroyed. In other words, his centre of gravity is not in himself; it is constantly changing its place, with every wish and whim."
• "the wealth of the soul is the only true wealth"
• "The man of inner wealth wants nothing from outside but the negative gift of undisturbed leisure, to develop and mature his intellectual faculties, that is, to enjoy his wealth; in short, he wants permission to be himself, his whole life long, every day and every hour."
• "Goethe says in Wilhelm Meister: The man who is born with a talent which he is meant to use, finds his greatest happiness in using it."
• "In much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow."
• "Money alone is absolutely good, because it is not only a concrete satisfaction of one need in particular; it is an abstract satisfaction of all."
• "Wife and children I have not reckoned amongst a man's possessions: he is rather in their possession." 

• "By a peculiar weakness of human nature, people generally think too much about the opinion which others form of them; although the slightest reflection will show that this opinion, whatever it may be, is not in itself essential to happiness."
• "it will very much conduce to our happiness if we duly compare the value of what a man is in and for himself with what he is in the eyes of others."
• "the sphere of what we are for other people is their consciousness, not ours; it is the kind of figure we make in their eyes"
• "But this is something which has no direct and immediate existence for us, but can affect us only mediately and indirectly, so far, that is, as other people's behavior towards us is directed by it; and even then it ought to affect us only in so far as it can move us to modify what we are in and for ourselves."
• "what goes on in other people's consciousness is, as such, a matter of indifference to us; and in time we get really indifferent to it, when we come to see how superficial and futile are most people's thoughts, how narrow their ideas, how mean their sentiments, how perverse their opinions, and how much of error there is in most of them; when we learn by experience with what depreciation a man will speak of his fellow, when he is not obliged to fear him, or thinks that what he says will not come to his ears."
• "to lay great value upon what other people say is to pay them too much honor"
• "the actual conditions of our personal life,--health, temperament, capacity, income, wife, children, friends, home, are a hundred times more important for our happiness than what other people are pleased to think of us"
• "And if people insist that honor is dearer than life itself, what they really mean is that existence and well-being are as nothing compared with other people's opinions."
• "most men set the utmost value precisely on what other people think, and are more concerned about it than about what goes on in their own consciousness, which is the thing most immediately and directly present to them. They reverse the natural order,--regarding the opinions of others as real existence and their own consciousness as something shadowy"
• "such people forget the end in their eagerness to obtain the means"
• "Scire tuum nihil est nisi te scire hoc sciat alter_, (Persins i, 27)--knowledge is no use unless others know that you have it."
• "In all we do, almost the first thing we think about is, what will people say; and nearly half the troubles and bothers of life may be traced to our anxiety on this score; it is the anxiety which is at the bottom of all that feeling of self-importance"
• "Now, it is obvious that happiness, which consists for the most part in peace of mind and contentment, would be served by nothing so much as by reducing this impulse of human nature within reasonable limits,--which would perhaps make it one fiftieth part of what it is now. By doing so, we should get rid of a thorn in the flesh which is always causing us"
• "If people were generally converted from this universal folly, the result would be such an addition to our piece of mind and cheerfulness as at present seems inconceivable; people would present a firmer and more confident front to the world, and generally behave with less embarrassment and restraint."
• "we thus escape having to live constantly in the sight of others, and pay everlasting regard to their casual opinions; in a word, we are able to return upon ourselves"
• "[Greek: chalepa ga kala]--what is worth doing is hard to do."
• "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."
• "vain people are talkative, proud, and taciturn. But the vain person ought to be aware that the good opinion of others, which he strives for, may be obtained much more easily and certainly by persistent silence than by speech"
• "It is only a firm, unshakeable conviction of pre-eminent worth and special value which makes a man proud in the true sense of the word"
• "vanity, which courts the applause of the world in order to gain the necessary foundation for a high opinion of one's own worth, whilst pride is based upon a pre-existing conviction of it"
• "It is quite true that pride is something which is generally found fault with, and cried down; but usually, I imagine, by those who have nothing upon which they can pride themselves."
• "anyone who possesses any kind of superiority or merit will do well to keep his eyes fixed on it"
• "Horace says, Sume superbiam Quaesitam meritis. --usurp the fame you have deserved."
• "No doubt, when modesty was made a virtue, it was a very advantageous thing for the fools"
• "The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud"
• "The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes."
• "individuality is a far more important thing than nationality"
• "Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right."
• "Let us take rank first, as it may be dismissed in a few words, although it plays an important part in the eyes of the masses and of the philistines, and is a most useful wheel in the machinery of the State. It has a purely conventional value. Strictly speaking, it is a sham; its method is to exact an artificial respect, and, as a matter of fact, the whole thing is a mere farce."
• "Orders, it may be said, are bills of exchange drawn on public opinion"
• "people in general have eyes and ears, it is true; but not much else, very little judgment indeed, or even memory"
• "It is a pleonasm to inscribe on any order _for distinguished service_; for every order ought to be for distinguished service."
• "Honor is external conscience, and conscience is inward honor"
• "Honor is, on its objective side, other people's opinion of what we are worth; on its subjective side, it is the respect we pay to this opinion."
• "The feelings of honor and shame exist in every man who is not utterly depraved, and honor is everywhere recognized as something particularly valuable."
• "By and in himself a man can accomplish very little; he is like Robinson Crusoe on a desert island. It is only in society that a man's powers can be called into full activity. He very soon finds this out when his consciousness begins to develop, and there arises in him the desire to be looked upon as a useful member of society, as one, that is, who is capable of playing his part as a man - pro parte virili"
• "Civic honor has the widest sphere of all. It consists in the assumption that we shall pay unconditional respect to the rights of others, and, therefore, never use any unjust or unlawful means of getting what we want."
• "there are three main kinds of honor, each of which takes various forms--civic honor, official honor, and sexual honor"
• "The man who breaks confidence has for ever forfeited confidence, whatever he may do, and whoever he may be; and the bitter consequences of the loss of confidence can never be averted."
• "Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost."
• "The absence of fame is obscurity, which is only a negative; but loss of honor is shame"
• "as Seneca[1] rightly remarks, _ut quisque contemtissimus et ludibrio est, ita solutissimae est_, the more contemptible and ridiculous a man is,--the readier he is with his tongue."
• "rudeness is better than any argument; it totally eclipses intellect."
• "Every piece of rudeness is, strictly speaking, an appeal to brutality; for it is a declaration that intellectual strength and moral insight are incompetent to decide, and that the battle must be fought out by physical force"
• "The whole thing manifestly rests upon an excessive degree of arrogant pride, which, completely forgetting what man really is, claims that he shall be absolutely free from all attack or even censure."
• "as Cicero says, _there is something so penetrating in the shaft of envy that even men of wisdom and worth find its wound a painful one_;"
• "True appreciation of his own value will make a man really indifferent to insult; but if he cannot help resenting it"
• "we should all soon come to the general opinion that insult and depreciation are like a battle in which the loser wins"
• "as Vincenzo Monti says, abuse resembles a church-procession, because it always returns to the point from which it set out. If we could only get people to look upon insult in this light, we should no longer have to say something rude in order to prove that we are in the right."
• "Now, unfortunately, if we want to take a serious view of any question, we have first of all to consider whether it will not give offense in some way or other to the dullard, who generally shows alarm and resentment at the merest sign of intelligence"
• "Man may be said to be the animal that beats."

(to be continued)