“In our early youth we sit before the life that lies ahead of us like children sitting before the curtain in a theatre, in happy and tense anticipation of whatever is going to appear. Luckily we do not know what really will appear.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In our early youth we sit before the life that lies ahead of us like children sitting before the curtain in a theatre, …" by Arthur Schopenhauer?

Arthur Schopenhauer 261

German philosopher 1788–1860

Related quotes

“In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

"On the Sufferings of the World"
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Studies in Pessimism
Context: In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a blessing that we do not know what is really going to happen. Could we foresee it, there are times when children might seem like innocent prisoners, condemned, not to death, but to life, and as yet all unconscious of what their sentence means.

“When we play the fool, how wide
The theatre expands! beside,
How long the audience sits before us!
How many prompters! what a chorus!”

Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) British writer

Plays, st. 2 (1846).

“Time comes to us softly, slowly. It sits beside us for a while. Then, long before we are ready, it moves on.”

Jacqueline Woodson (1963) American writer

Source: If You Come Softly

“It’s really hard to do nothing totally. Even just sitting here, like this, our bodies are churning, our minds are chattering. There’s a whole commotion going on inside us.”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

“We find only what we seek: nature has many secrets to give us, but she will not surrender them until we sit down patiently before her and obey her laws. Only by such submission do we receive.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 5, p. 85

“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.”

Eudora Welty book One Writer's Beginnings

One Writer's Beginnings(1984)

“There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1950s, The Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955)

“Here before us was sufficient evidence to show that it really was an entrance to a tomb, and by the seals, to all outward appearances that it was intact.”

Howard Carter (1874–1939) British egyptologist

Diary, 5 November 1922 http://www.ashmolean.museum/gri/4sea1not.html.

“It's going to disappear. One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. And from our shores, we — you know, it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We'll see what happens. Nobody really knows.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Regarding coronavirus

African American History Month reception, White House, , quoted in * 2020-02-29

Inside Trump’s frantic attempts to minimize the coronavirus crisis

Yasmeen Abutaleb, Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey

Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-frantic-attempts-to-minimize-the-coronavirus-crisis/2020/02/29/7ebc882a-5b25-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html
2020s, 2020, February

“Sometimes we anticipate conditions before they become real and we create our own heartbreaks.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1976

“In our early youth we sit before the life that lies ahead of us like children sitting before the curtain in a theatre, in happy and tense anticipation of whatever is going to appear. Luckily we do not know what really will appear.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Arthur Schopenhauer 261

Related quotes

Related topics