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Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes about Fate

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What people commonly call fate is mostly their own stupidity.

What people commonly call fate is mostly their own stupidity.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Funny, Fate, Destiny

What people commonly call Fate is, as a general rule, nothing but their own stupid and foolish conduct.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Stupid, Fate, People
Arthur Schopenhauer (2007). “Parerga and Paralipomena: A Collection of Philosophical Essays”, Cosimo, Inc.

To be alone is the fate of all great minds—a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Fate, Two, Evil
Arthur Schopenhauer (2015). “The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer - Counsels and maxims (illustrated)”, p.29, Full Moon Publications

There is not much to be got anywhere in the world. It is filled with misery and pain; if a man escapes these, boredeom lies in wait for him at every corner. Nay more; it is evil which generally has the upper hand, and folly that makes the most noise. Fate is cruel and mankind pitiable.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Pain, Lying, Fate
Arthur Schopenhauer (2012). “Collected Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer”, p.423, Simon and Schuster

The best consolation in misfortune or affliction of any kind will be the thought of other people who are in a still worse plight than yourself; and this is a form of consolation open to every one. But what an awful fate this means for mankind as a whole! We are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher, who chooses out first one and then another for his prey.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Mean, Eye, Fate
Arthur Schopenhauer (2015). “Studies in Pessimism”, p.5, Arthur Schopenhauer

At the age of five years to enter a spinning-cotton or other factory, and from that time forth to sit there daily, first ten, then twelve, and ultimately fourteen hours, performing the same mechanical labour, is to purchase dearly the satisfaction of drawing breath. But this is the fate of millions, and that of millions more is analogous to it.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Fate, Drawing, Years
"The World as Will and Representation, Volume II (On the Vanity and Suffering of Life)". Book by Arthur Schopenhauer (1819), as translated by R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp in "The World as Will and Idea" (p. 389), 1886.

It's the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Philosophical, Fate, Gambling

A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner; nor with his fate if the corner granted him allows of his following his vocation without having to think about other people.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Fate, Thinking, Should Have
Arthur Schopenhauer (2007). “Parerga and Paralipomena: A Collection of Philosophical Essays”, Cosimo, Inc.

It is the courage to make a clean breast of it in the face of every question that makes the philosopher. He must be like Sophocles' Oedipus, who, seeking enlightenment concerning his terrible fate, pursues his indefatigable inquiry even though he divines that appalling horror awaits him in the answer. But most of us carry with us the Jocasta in our hearts, who begs Oedipus, for God's sake, not to inquire further.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Philosophy, Heart, Fate
Letter to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, November 1819.

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