The poet presents the ...

The poet presents the imagination with images from life and human characters and situations, sets them all in motion and leaves itto the beholder to let these images take his thoughts as far as his mental powers will permit. This is why he is able to engage men of the most differing capabilities, indeed fools and sages together. The philosopher, on the other hand, presents not life itself but the finished thoughts which he has abstracted from it and then demands that the reader should think precisely as, and precisely as far as, he himself thinks. That is why his public is so small.
The poet presents the imagination with images from life and human characters and situations, sets them all in motion and leaves itto the beholder to let these images take his thoughts as far as his mental powers will permit. This is why he is able to engage men of the most differing capabilities, indeed fools and sages together. The philosopher, on the other hand, presents not life itself but the finished thoughts which he has abstracted from it and then demands that the reader should think precisely as, and precisely as far as, he himself thinks. That is why his public is so small.
 Arthur Schopenhauer

Quotes from the same author

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
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 Arthur Schopenhauer
In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.
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 Arthur Schopenhauer
If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?
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 Arthur Schopenhauer
A man of business will often deceive you without the slightest scruple, but he will absolutely refuse to commit a theft.
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 Arthur Schopenhauer
The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.
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 Arthur Schopenhauer