Arthur Schopenhauer

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

In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one's rights and double one's duties.

Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.

It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.

Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.

Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own.

A man's face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man's thoughts and aspirations.

Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies.

In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.

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

Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.

Money is human happiness in the abstract; he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money.

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.

Music is the melody whose text is the world.

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

Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.

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.

Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.

Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.

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.

The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.

Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune.

Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another's money. Idiots!

The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.

Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first.

We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.

It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.

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