Arthur Schopenhauer quotes

Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed.

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

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.

Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.

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.

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

We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.

There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.

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.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

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.

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.

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

Music is the melody whose text is the world.

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

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

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

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

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

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

Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.

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

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

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.

Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head.

Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.

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

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

Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.

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.

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

Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune.

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

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

It is only a man's own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else's meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

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.

I've never known any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

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

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

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

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

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

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

Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.

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.

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.

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.

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.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

After your death you will be what you were before your birth.

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

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