88 quotes
The less one, as a result of objective or subjective conditions, has to come into contact with people, the better off one is for it.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
I have described religion as the metaphysics of the people.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
In philosophy at the universities truth occupies only a secondary place and, if called upon, she must get up and make room for another attribute.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
Philosophy of religion … really amounts to … philosophizing on certain favorite assumptions that are not confirmed at all.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
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.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but also a disruption of thought.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
The presence of a thought is like the presence of a lover.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence?
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
If you feel irritated by the absurd remarks of two people whose conversation you happen to overhear, you should imagine that you are listening to a dialogue of two fools in a comedy.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
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.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
The poet presents the imagination with images from life and human characters and situations, sets them all in motion and leaves it to the beholder to let these images take his thoughts as far as his mental powers will permit.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
The charlatan takes very different shapes according to circumstances; but at bottom he is a man who cares nothing about knowledge for its own sake, and only strives to gain the semblance of it that he may use it for his own personal ends, which are always selfish and material.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another’s money. Idiots!
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
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.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
They belong not to one system, one nation only, but to the universe. And just because they are so very far away, it is usually many years before their light is visible to the inhabitants of this earth.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)