The Wisdom of Life, and Other Essays Quotes

“The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Works of Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life and Other Essays

“Hence, 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, and try and win one another’s money. Idiots!”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life and Other Essays: The Works of Arthur Schopenhauer

“On hearing of the interesting events which have happened in the course of a man's experience, many people will wish that similar things had 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 Byron's poems, which are obviously founded upon actual facts; where it is open to a foolish reader to envy the poet because so many delightful things happened to him, instead of envying that mighty power of fantasy which was capable of turning a fairly common experience into something so great and beautiful.”
― Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life, and Other Essays