"Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour."

Happiness

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Insight & Reflection

This reflection on happiness by Arthur Schopenhauer resonates across generations. It highlights a fundamental truth about human nature: our continuous search for meaning in happiness is what ultimately defines our character and our path forward.

About Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer, also known as the “Philosopher of Pessimism”, was a German philosopher and writer. He is known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation, which characterizes the phenomenal world as the manifestation of a blind and irrational noumenal will. Building on the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant, Schopenhauer developed an atheistic, metaphysical and ethical system that rejected the contemporaneous ideas of German idealism.

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Editorial Note: This quote is curated and fact-checked by the Quotes Archive Editorial Team. Verified Literature Specialist.

More by Arthur Schopenhauer

"Wisdom is the quiet art of recognizing what can be changed and releasing what cannot. In this truth lies the bedrock of all virtue — an essential principle for the reflective life."

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"Do not wait for favorable winds; take the oars and row toward your horizon. Such is the immutable nature of understanding — an essential principle for the reflective life."

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"Time is the most impartial judge; it reveals all pretenses and rewards all patience. Such is the immutable nature of understanding — an essential principle for the reflective life."

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More about Happiness

"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."

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"There is this difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool."

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"We are not the same persons this year as last nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person."

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