"人生实如钟摆，在痛苦和倦怠之间摆动......要么庸俗，要么孤独”-叔本华

这是今早在思韵写给她父亲“如歌的行板”这篇博文里读到的一句话，感慨之余，想去搜搜英文是怎么翻译的，结果没找到，却读了一两个小时他的quotes。我不懂哲学，并不了解叔本华，只知道他好像是个悲观主义者，认为欲望给人带来痛苦。他的哲学好像跟佛教的“人生苦海无涯”类似 (“Life is a sorry business")，好像强调“空”, “无欲”。他对婚姻的看法类似“婚姻是爱情的坟墓”("To marry means to do everything possible to become an object of disgust to each other")。 在他33岁那年，他爱上一个十九岁的歌剧演唱家，但终没有结婚。四十三岁时，又向一个十七岁的女子示好，遭到拒绝。看来他自己也做不到“无欲”啊：-)。现摘录一些他的思想观点在此。至于这鸡汤到底喝不喝，每个人的喜好不同，哲学的思潮五花八门。不过了解一下，学学英文无妨啊。虽然我摘录的部分并没有太多悲观的内容， 但有时人极容易受悲观情绪左右，容易无病呻吟，喜欢将生活中的忧愁放大。这两天仔细想了想，其实生命卑如青草，人到中年，不必锱铢必较，不必追悔早已逝去的岁月，徒增悲伤，也不必纠结生命的意义到底是什么？Regardless, 应该向前看，积极向上地活着，珍惜所剩的岁月和时间，珍惜当下，健康开心每一天，才是我们这个年纪的人应该努力去做的。

The little incidents and accidents of every day fill us with emotion, anxiety, annoyance, passion, as long as they are close to us, when they appear so big, so important, so serious; but as soon as they are borne down the restless stream of time they lose what significance they had; we think no more of them and soon forget them altogether. They were big only because they were near.

·         …a man never is happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which he thinks will make him so; he seldom attains his goal, and when he does, it is only to be disappointed; he is mostly shipwrecked in the end, and comes into harbor with mast and rigging gone. And then, it is all one whether he has been happy or miserable; for his life was never anything more than a present moment always vanishing; and now it is over.

·         …to gain anything we have longed for is only to discover how vain and empty it is; and even though we are always living in expectation of better things, at the same time we often repent and long to have the past back again.

·         It is a curious fact that in bad days we can very vividly recall the good time that is now no more; but that in good days, we have only a very cold and imperfect memory of the bad.

·         Every satisfaction he attains lays the seeds of some new desire, so that there is no end to the wishes of each individual will.

·         …if the lives of men were relieved of all need, hardship and adversity; if everything they took in hand were successful, they would be so swollen with arrogance that, though they might not burst, they would present the spectacle of unbridled folly—nay, they would go mad. And I may say, further, that a certain amount of care or pain or trouble is necessary for every man at all times. A ship without ballast is unstable and will not go straight.

·         Pleasure comes from alternating between work and rest, hardship and comfort, pleasure and pain. There is no happiness in constant satisfaction.

·         …in order to increase his pleasures, man has intentionally added to the number and pressure of his needs, which in their original state were not much more difficult to satisfy than those of the brute. Hence luxury in all its forms; delicate food, the use of tobacco and opium, spirituous liquors, fine clothes, and the thousand and one things that he considers necessary to his existence.

·         No one knows what capacities for doing and suffering he has in himself, until something comes to rouse them to activity: just as in a pond of still water, lying there like a mirror, there is no sign of the roar and thunder with which it can leap from the precipice, and yet remain what it is; or again, rise high in the air as a fountain. When water is as cold as ice, you can have no idea of the latent warmth contained in it.

·         …man may have the most excellent judgment in all other matters, and yet go wrong in those which concern himself; because here the will comes in and deranges the intellect at once. Therefore let a man take counsel of a friend. A doctor can cure everyone but himself; if he falls ill, he sends for a colleague.

·         If life—the craving for which is the very essence of our being—were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing. But as it is, we take no delight in existence except when we are struggling for something; and then distance and difficulties to be overcome make our goal look as though it would satisfy us.

·         “Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, Lighthouses as the poet said erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind, Books are humanity in print.”

·         “There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome –to be got over.”

·         “Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.”

·         “Each day is a little life; every waking and rising a little birth; every fresh morning a little youth; every going to rest and sleep a little death.”

·         “To marry is to halve your rights and double your duties.”

·         “Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.”

      “  To live alone is the fate of all great souls.”