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experience, intellectual attainments, the practice of seeing to the bottom of things, and so a perfect mental vision, form in themselves a mass which continues to increase in size
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“experience, intellectual attainments, the practice of seeing to the bottom of things, and so a perfect mental vision, form in themselves a mass which continues to increase in size”

Arthur Schopenhauer

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Source
Counsels and Maxims
Date
1851
English wording
T. Bailey Saunders — Translator · from German
Meaning

Meaning of “experience, intellectual attainments, the practice of seeing to…”

Schopenhauer describes accumulated experience and practiced inquiry as resources that can continue growing even while other capacities change with age.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Counsels and Maxims, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10715. The passage appears in an age-related comparison of intellectual powers and accumulated material.

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AttitudeCuriosityGrowthGrowth MindsetHumilityInspirational Quotes About Hope, Courage & PossibilityLearning Quotes About Curiosity, Study & ExperienceLifeLife AdviceLife LessonsMindMindsetMotivation For LifePersonal GrowthSelf ImprovementThinking Quotes About Reasoning, Reflection & JudgmentUnderstandingExperienceIntelligence
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by the constant growth of insight and knowledge, this intellectual life, like a slowly-forming work of art, will acquire a consistency, a permanent intensity, a unity which becomes ever more and more complete
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“by the constant growth of insight and knowledge, this intellectual life, like a slowly-forming work of art, will acquire a consistency, a permanent intensity, a unity which becomes ever more and more complete”

Arthur Schopenhauer · The Wisdom of Life · 1851
Meaning & context

The image treats intellectual development as cumulative craftsmanship: insight and knowledge gradually produce greater coherence instead of appearing as a single finished achievement.

Source details

The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. The simile compares a developing intellectual life with a slowly formed work of art.

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If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
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“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”

Francis Bacon · The Advancement of Learning · 1605
Meaning & context

Intellectual confidence can be improved by beginning with questions rather than pretending certainty too early.

Source details

The Advancement of Learning, First Book, Project Gutenberg #5500, transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition. Bacon contrasts impatience of doubt with mature suspension of judgment and then sets out two ways of contemplation before saying that beginning with certainties ends in doubts while beginning with doubts can end in certainties. It remains early-modern epistemological argument rather than a modern experimental rule for scientific method.

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The first thing that experience finds to do is to free us from the phantoms of the brain—those false notions that have been put into us in youth.
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“The first thing that experience finds to do is to free us from the phantoms of the brain—those false notions that have been put into us in youth.”

Arthur Schopenhauer · Counsels and Maxims · 1851
Meaning & context

Experience is presented as corrective: inherited assumptions and youthful projections can be revised when later encounters expose a mismatch between expectation and reality.

Source details

Counsels and Maxims, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10715. The statement belongs to Schopenhauer’s broader, characteristically pessimistic discussion of age and experience.

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Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things.
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“Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things.”

William James · The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy · 1897
Meaning & context

James resists treating every possible intellectual mistake as catastrophic, because an excessive fear of error can itself prevent inquiry, experience and the possibility of gaining truth.

Source details

The Will to Believe, essay “The Will to Believe”; Project Gutenberg #26659. James is contrasting the risk of being mistaken with the cost of refusing every uncertain intellectual venture.

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it is only when he has turned it over that he can be said to know it.
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“it is only when he has turned it over that he can be said to know it.”

Arthur Schopenhauer · The Art of Literature · 1851
Meaning & context

Learning becomes knowledge, in this account, when material has been actively reconsidered and integrated rather than merely encountered or memorized.

Source details

The Art of Literature, section “On Thinking for Oneself,” T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10714. The preceding sentence says a person must first learn something before turning it over in the mind.

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Culture is then properly described not as having its origin in curiosity, but as having its origin in the love of perfection.
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“Culture is then properly described not as having its origin in curiosity, but as having its origin in the love of perfection.”

Matthew Arnold · Culture and Anarchy · 1869
Meaning & context

Curiosity becomes more than collecting information when it is directed toward fuller development, better judgment, and a serious desire to improve understanding.

Source details

Culture and Anarchy; Arnold distinguishes idle curiosity from the pursuit of intellectual and moral perfection.

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