A Series of Essays by Arthur Schopenhauer

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P. Eckler, 1915 - 570 pages

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Page 94 - Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days : But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise...
Page 8 - Wie an dem Tag, der dich der Welt verliehen, Die Sonne stand zum Gruße der Planeten, Bist alsobald und fort und fort gediehen Nach dem Gesetz, wonach du angetreten. So mußt du sein, dir kannst du nicht entfliehen, So sagten schon Sibyllen, so Propheten ; Und keine Zeit und keine Macht zerstückelt Geprägte Form, die lebend sich entwickelt.
Page 31 - MAN, that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down like a flower ; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.
Page 89 - He that telleth a tale to a fool speaketh to one in a slumber; when he hath told his tale, he will say, What is the matter ? If children live honestly, and have wherewithal, they shall cover the baseness of their parents.
Page 51 - There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.
Page 101 - It appears that the weight of the brain increases rapidly up to the seventh year, more slowly to between sixteen and twenty, and still more slowly to between thirty and forty, when it reaches its maximum. Beyond this period, as age advances and the mental faculties decline, the brain diminishes slowly in weight about an ounce for each subsequent decennial period.
Page 37 - And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove ! Then would I fly away, and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off, I would lodge in the wilderness. I would haste me to a shelter From the stormy wind and tempest.
Page 20 - And, as a rule, it will be found that a man is sociable just in the degree in which he is intellectually poor and generally vulgar. For one's choice in this world does not go much beyond solitude on one side and vulgarity on the other. It is said that the most sociable of all people are the negroes, and they are at the bottom of the scale in intellect I remember reading once in a French...
Page 4 - ... happened in their lives too, completely forgetting that they should be envious rather of the mental aptitude which lent those events the significance they possess when he describes them ; to a man of genius they were interesting adventures ; but to the dull perceptions of an ordinary individual they would have been stale, everyday occurrences. This is in the highest degree the case with many of Goethe's and...
Page 33 - This is as though the author were holding a monologue ; whereas it ought to be a dialogue; and a dialogue, too, in which he must express himself all the more clearly inasmuch as he cannot hear the questions of his interlocutor. Style should for this very reason never be subjective, but objective; and it will not be objective unless the words are so set down that they directly force the reader to think precisely the same thing as the author thought when he wrote them. Nor will this result be obtained...

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