If your abilities are only mediocre, modesty is mere honesty; but if you possess great talents, it is hypocrisy.
romantic · pessimism
Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer · 1788–1860 · German
The great pessimist of German philosophy, and one of its funniest. Will, boredom, and the limits of other people.
Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try to win one another's money. Idiots!
Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.
Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.
Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.
The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority, have always done just the opposite.
Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can't expect an angel to look out.
No rose without a thorn. But many a thorn without a rose.
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 everyone stands alone, and the important thing is who it is that stands alone.
You are free to do what you want, but you are not free to want what you want.
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.
Compassion is the basis of morality.
The amount of noise that anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity.
Time is that in which all things pass away.
Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are the tormented souls.