Money causes more harm than good

Raushan while preparing for his Eng-1, ICSE exams wrote an essay on:

Money causes more harm than good.

7_Arthur Schopenhauer – Quotes {Final}

Bust in Frankfurt am Main




“The fundamental defect of the female character is a lack of a sense of justice. This originates first and foremost in their want of rationality and capacity for reflexion but it is strengthened by the fact that, as the weaker sex, they are driven to rely not on force but on cunning: hence their instinctive subtlety and their ineradicable tendency to tell lies: for, as nature has equipped the lion with claws and teeth, the elephant with tusks, the wild boar with fangs, the bull with horns and the cuttlefish with ink, so it has equipped woman with the power of dissimulation as her means of attack and defence, and has transformed into this gift all the strength it has bestowed on man in the form of physical strength and the power of reasoning. Dissimulation is thus inborn in her and consequently to be found in the stupid woman almost as often as in the clever one. To make use of it at every opportunity is as natural to her as it is for an animal to employ its means of defence whenever it is attacked, and when she does so she feels that to some extent she is only exercising her rights. A completely truthful woman who does not practice dissimulation is perhaps an impossibility, which is why women see through the dissimulation of others so easily it is inadvisable to attempt it with them. – But this fundamental defect which I have said they possess, together with all that is associated with it, gives rise to falsity, unfaithfulness, treachery, ingratitude, etc. Women are guilty of perjury far more often than men. It is questionable whether they ought to be allowed to take an oath at all.”


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6_Arthur Schopenhauer - Quotes

“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.”



“If God made this world, then i would not want to be the God. It is full of misery and distress that it breaks my heart.”



“Sometimes I speak to men and women just as a little girl speaks to her doll. She knows, of course, that the doll does not understand her, but she creates for herself the joy of communication through a pleasant and conscious self-deception.”



“The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.”

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5_Arthur Schopenhauer - Quotes

Schopenhauer in 1852









“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.”





“He who can see truly in the midst of general infatuation is like a man whose watch keeps good time, when all clocks in the town in which he lives are wrong. He alone knows the right time; what use is that to him?”





“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!”




“For it is a matter of daily observation that people take the greatest pleasure in that which satisfies their vanity; and vanity cannot be satisfied without comparison with others.”




“Consider the Koran, for example; this wretched book was sufficient to start a world-religion, to satisfy the metaphysical needs of countless millions for twelve hundred years, to become the basis of their morality and of a remarkable contempt for death, and also to inspire them to bloody wars and the most extensive conquests. Much may be lost in translation, but I have not been able to discover in it one single idea of value.”




“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.”




“Other people's heads are too wretched a place for true happiness to have its seat.”




“Honour has not to be won; it must only not be lost.”




“Men need some kind of external activity, because they are inactive within.”


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4_Arthur Schopenhauer - Quotes

Grave at Frankfurt Hauptfriedhof







“If the world were a paradise of luxury and ease, a land flowing with milk and honey, where every Jack obtained his Jill at once and without any difficulty, men would either die of boredom or hang themselves; or there would be wars, massacres, and murders; so that in the end mankind would inflict more suffering on itself than it has now to accept at the hands of Nature.”



“Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.”



“The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy.”



“Rascals are always sociable, and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others company.”



“We seldom think of what we have, but always of what we lack.”



“Students and scholars of all kinds and of every age aim, as a rule, only at information, not insight. They make it a point of honour to have information about everything, every stone, plant, battle, or experiment and about all books, collectively and individually. It never occurs to them that information is merely a means to insight, but in itself is of little or no value.”


“Ordinary people merely think how they shall 'spend' their time; a man of talent tries to 'use' it.”



“Marrying means, to grasp blindfolded into a sack hoping to find out an eel out of an assembly of snakes.”


“Clio, the muse of history, is as thoroughly infected with lies as a street whore with syphilis.”


“Each day is a little life.”


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3_Arthur Schopenhauer - Quotes

Artuher Schoepenheur as a youth










“Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people. There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness.”


“Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.”


“Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of one’s own.”


“The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.”



“That I could clamber to the frozen moon. And draw the ladder after me.”


“One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.

In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited.”


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2_Arthur Schopenhauer - Quotes

Birthplace House in Gdansk










“We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.”


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


“It would be better if there were nothing. Since there is more pain than pleasure on earth, every satisfaction is only transitory, creating new desires and new distresses, and the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer”


“Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think. ”


“A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial.”


“No rose without a thorn but many a thorn without a rose.”


“I have not yet spoken my last word about women. I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself from above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more than a man.”


“Marrying means to halve one's rights and double one's duties”


“If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.”


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1_Arthur Schopenhauer - Quotes

Few extracts from Arthur Schoepenhauer's Book :

1. The Art of Being Right
2. On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason

Arthur Schoepenhauer











“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”

“All truth passes through three stages:
First, it is ridiculed;
Second, it is violently opposed;
Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”


“Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.”


“A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.”


“... that when you're buying books, you're optimistically thinking you're buying the time to read them.


“The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.”


“If anyone spends almost the whole day in reading...he gradually loses the capacity for thinking...This is the case with many learned persons; they have read themselves stupid”


“It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.”


“A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.”


“Life without pain has no meaning.”

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9_Albert Camus – Quotes (Final)

“Every action today leads to murder, direct or indirect.”

“Man is an idea, and a precious small
idea, once he turns his back on love. And
that's my point; we, mankind, have lost the capacity for love.”



“Maybe Christ died for somebody but not for me.”

“The beginning of war is similar to the beginning of peace — the world and the heart know nothing about it.”



“Deepest thoughts and major works eventually become insignificant.”



“Is one to die voluntarily or to hope in spite of everything?”

“For people like me, the face just says that we die alone.”




“What we do for ourselves dies with us, what we do for others remains in the world today”

“The mind, when it reaches its limits, must make a judgment and choose its conclusions. This is where suicide and the reply stand.”

“You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.”



“It takes time to live. Like any work of art, life needs to be thought about.”


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8_Albert Camus – Quotes

“the one who doesnt play, doesnt win anything, but he actually looses somehting, {playing}”


“When a man has learned how to remain alone with his suffering, how to overcome his longing to flee, then he has little left to learn.”

“A practical rule: a man which is wise in one area may be silly in others.”


“A life, whose purpose is money, is death.”


“...since the order of the world is shaped by death, mightn't it be better for God if we refuse to believe in Him and struggle with all our might against death, without raising our eyes towards the heaven where He sits in silence?”


“With rebellion, awareness is born”

“There are accidents that last the whole life.”


“La vie ne vaut rien, mais rien vaut la vie...”
(Life is worth nothing, but nothing worth living)


“You see, Mersualt, all the misery and cruelty of our civilisation can be measured by this one stupid axiom: happy nations have no history.”

“Everything I know of morality, I learned on the soccer field.”

“As always, whenever I want to get rid of someone I'm not really listening to, I made it appear as if I agreed.”


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7_Albert Camus – Quotes

“There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.”


“Actual freedom has not increased in proportion to man's awareness of it.”


“...luck is not to be coerced.”


“By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.”


“We live in a world where one needs to choose - to be the victim or the executioner, and nothing else.”

“Life is crammed with events that encourage us to want to get old.”


“It is almost impossible to watch a clockwise direction - it gets extremely boring and causes despair.”


“Men are never convinced of your reasons, of your sincerity, of the seriousness of your sufferings, except by your death.”


“Every man needs slaves like he needs clean air. To rule is to breathe, is it not? And even the most disenfranchised get to breathe. The lowest on the social scale have their spouses or their children.”


“I cannot stand the company of men. They flatter or they judge. I can stand neither of the two.”


“I like the night and the sky better than the gods of men.”


“Happiness is often only a pity for one's own misfortune.”

6_Albert Camus - Quotes

“An achievement is a bondage. It obliges one to a higher achievement.”

“... We need the sweet pain of anticipation to tell us we are really alive.”


“Youth is above all a collection of possibilities.”


“Whatever prevents you from doing your work has become your work.”


“We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.”

“No ends, simply means.”


“A craving for freedom and independence is generated only in a man still living on hope.”


“After awhile you could get used to anything.”


“It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear on the contrary that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning”


“The real 19th century prophet was Dostoevsky, not Karl Marx.”


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5_Albert Camus – Quotes

“Every revolutionary ends up either by becoming an oppressor or a heretic.”


“Here lives a free man. Nobody serves him.”


“I have a very old and very faithful attachment for dogs. I like them because they always forgive.”


“There is but one true philosophical problem and that is suicide.”


“To think the way you do, you have to be a man who lives either on a tremendous despair, or on a tremendous hope.

“We're going forward, but nothing changes.”


“Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.”


“Hello Image.”

“Humans are creatures, who spent their lives trying to convince themselves, that their existence is not absurd”


“Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face.”


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4_Albert Camus - Quotes

“Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.”


“We are all born mad, some remain so”


“I continue to believe that this world has no ultimate meaning. But I know that something in it has a meaning and that is man, because he is the only creature to insist on having one”


“You always get exaggerated notions about things you don't know anything about.”


“But sometimes it takes more courage to live than to shoot yourself.”

“Today we are always as ready to judge as we are to fornicate.”


“At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.”


“It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.”


“Life is a sum of all your choices".
So, what are you doing today?”

“The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown.”


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3_Albert Camus - Quotes

“I rebel; therefore I exist.”

“Nothing in life is worth, turning your back on, if you love it.”

“Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable.”

“The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits.”

“Have you no hope at all? And do you really live with the thought that when you die, you die, and nothing remains?" "Yes," I said.”

“He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.”

“I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to L'Illustration. Something desperate, you know.”

“I don't want to be a genius-I have enough problems just trying to be a man.”

“There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night.”

“Art and revolt will die only with the last man.”

2_Albert Camus - Quotes

“People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.”


“The only serious question in life is whether to kill yourself or not.”

“Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep”


“I had only a little time left and I didn't want to waste it on God.”

“What is a rebel? A man who says no.”

“Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.”


“Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it.”


“What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying.”


“Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter.”


“The most important thing you do everyday you live is deciding not to kill yourself.”


“There are crimes of passion and crimes of logic. The boundary between them is not clearly defined.”

1_Albert Camus - Quotes

Of late, I have been touching Albert Camus’s works. Here are some of his quotes:

“Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”

“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”

“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”

“There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for.”

“But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.”

“To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.”

“I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.”

“I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.”

“I would rather live my life as if there is a god and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is.

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Dekalog 1 by Krzysztof Kieślowski

It is Kafkaesque at first glance.

Perhaps a 3 hour epic cannot achieve what Dekalog 1 does in 53 minutes. It has the propensity to revolutionize the way you look and live your life.

The main character portrayed as a rationalist father’s confidence in his calculations and technology might even leave you a little flustered. You might start a metaphysical and psychological exploration going ahead in your life.

The haunting images may stay with you long after you have seen it and may lift this work up high above other works.

Scenes which appears random at first have in fact, greater significance overall by the end of the episode.

Predetermined Fate (?), predictions (?) and accidents (!) conceivably cannot be explained by the cause and effect paradigm

Now, one has to make a decision whether one wants to spend some 9 hours of one’s life watching Kieslowski’s magnum opus or live life ignorantly and blissfully.

The Dekalog is a 1989 Polish television drama series consisting of 10 episodes, directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski

Melancholia by LVT

It is really melancholic. It shows the definitive emptiness and an agonizing susceptibility of daily rituals. Like Antichrist, it may not appeal to the general public. Perhaps one might experience tediousness, frustration and nausea.

However the opening and closing scenes are mesmerizing.

Gourmandize / Create and Criticize

Came across an interesting word : ”gourmandize”
It means : To eat food in a gluttonous manner; to gorge; to make a pig of oneself

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-People look for praise, not criticism.

-Don’t do things trying to please the critics, you will never make it.

-Creators create – they don’t criticize.

-Criticism is easy - creation isn’t.

-Those who have failed, becomes critics.

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How little we know of our life notwithstanding the fact that we have experienced it first hand.

Somebody was giving me the works on death!

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Nick Drake

Nick Drake was an English folk singer known for his gentle, deadpan songs and his prodigal right-hand finger picking technique.

After hearing his albums (Five Leaves Left/Bryter Layter/Pink Moon/Family Tree), I have started holding him in very high esteem.

Drake suffered from depression and this reflects in his songs. He is said to have”disappeared” from public life (both live performance and recording) and retreated to his parents' rural home. He was not much keen to be interviewed or to perform live.

Nick Drake was born in Rangoon, Burma, June 19, 1948 and died in, England, November 25, 1974)

He took an overdose and died at the age of 26. No one knew whether it was an accident or suicide.

Michael Heneke’s ‘The Seventh Continent’

La Strada, La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini), The Human Condition (Masaki Kobayashi), Taste Of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami), Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais), Good Morning and Early Spring (Yasujiro Ozu),Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese), Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin), The Wages of Fear (Henri-Georges Clouzot ), Dersu Uzala (Akira Kurosawa), Underground (Emir Kusturica), Y Tu Mamá También (Alfonso Cuarón), A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson), are some of the few films that I saw and could relate to an existential theme. But of late after watching Michael Heneke’s The Seventh Continent, I understood what Albert Camus meant in his “An Absurd Reasoning.” I quote and unquote Camus

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest -- whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories -- comes afterward. These are games; one must first answer.”


In Michael Heneke’s ’The Seventh Continent’, A tedious middle-class family is exposed in a chain of condensed scenes, going about their daily chores over a number of years. The husband is an engineer, the wife an optician who co-owns the business with her brother. They have a bright and passive little girl. For the first half-hour or so, Haneke doesn't show anyone's faces: just close-ups on hands, feet, necks, waists as they get up, brush their teeth, make breakfast, and go about the daily grind. By this time you start to feel bored. As an audience you might even start to abuse. You also start to wonder how tedious life can be. You then realize you cannot escape from the shackles of routine and consumption.

After about 30 minutes of this study of human and their modern meaningless culture, we get a hold of a comprehensible view of their faces, with some restrained suggestions that all is not well.

Finally, it becomes clear that the family is coming to a startling conclusion about the uselessness, triviality, worthlessness, insignificance and futility of their lives, which is finally dissected in the most extravagant approach.

After the movie you step out and see people gliding through life in sealed glass boxes, unable to really connect to anything besides their materialistic possessions.

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