Arthur Schopenhauer

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

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

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.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

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

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.

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.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

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

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

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.

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

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.

Rascals are always sociable, more's the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others' company.

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

Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.

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.

It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us.

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

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

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

Honor means that a man is not exceptional; fame, that he is. Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost.

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

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'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.

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

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.

Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune.

Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.

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

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

The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.

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

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

Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.

The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time.

For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.

Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes.

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

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

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

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

Compassion is the basis of morality.

The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.

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

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

Music is the melody whose text is the world.

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

Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.

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.

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