Q0341

Arthur Schopenhauer

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

What a person is contributes more to his happiness than what he has.
Thinker Arthur Schopenhauer
School Voluntarism
Source Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life
Theme Happiness
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life, within the tradition of Voluntarism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of happiness, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Arthur Schopenhauer's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Arthur Schopenhauer. (n.d.). What a person is contributes more to his happiness than what he has. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0341

MLA: Arthur Schopenhauer. “What a person is contributes more to his….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0341.

Chicago: Arthur Schopenhauer. “What a person is contributes more to his….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0341.

Same thinker

More from Arthur Schopenhauer

  1. The world is my representation.
  2. Compassion is the basis of morality.
  3. Reading means thinking with someone else's head instead of one's own.
  4. Solitude is the lot of all outstanding minds.
  5. All life is suffering.

All quotations by Arthur Schopenhauer

Same theme

More on happiness

  1. The human good is activity of soul in accordance with virtue.
  2. Of all that wisdom provides for the happiness of a whole life, by far the greatest is the possession of friendship.
  3. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.
  4. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
  5. The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions…be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

Browse the happiness theme