Book
Aforisme asupra înțelepciunii în viață
by Arthur Schopenhauer · 1851 · 3 reading cards · public domain
3 cards
Aforisme asupra înțelepciunii în viață · 1851
Life's value is measured not by how you kill time, but by how you invest it.
Schopenhauer distinguishes between spending time passively out of boredom and investing it actively in meaningful activities. The ordinary person escapes boredom with shallow entertainment. The talented person turns it into creation or learning. For example, one scrolls on their phone for hours, another writes a journal or learns a language.
“The ordinary man thinks merely how he shall spend his time; a man of talent tries to use it.”
Aforisme asupra înțelepciunii în viață · 1851
Health is the necessary and fundamental condition for being able to enjoy any other value in life.
Schopenhauer places health above money, fame, or pleasure because without a functioning body and mind, nothing can be enjoyed. A serious illness makes wealth or a vacation irrelevant. He does not say health is sufficient, but that it is the necessary condition for any happiness.
“Health is not everything, but without health everything is nothing.”
Aforisme asupra înțelepciunii în viață · 1851
New truth moves from ridicule to violence, then to self-evidence.
Schopenhauer describes people's natural resistance to ideas that shake their beliefs. At first, novelty seems absurd and is met with mockery. When it becomes hard to ignore, those who feel threatened attack it furiously. Eventually, after enough people understand it, no one remembers it was ever controversial. For instance, Copernicus's heliocentric theory was ridiculed, then condemned by the Church, and is now taught in schools as a mundane fact.
“All truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, then violently opposed, and finally accepted as self-evident.”