Arthur Schopenhauer

Reason deserves to be called a prophet; for in showing us the consequence and effect of our actions in the present, does it not tell us what the future will be?

Every parting gives a foretaste of death; every coming together again a foretaste of the resurrection.

With people of only moderate ability modesty is a mere honesty; but with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.

In their hearts women think that it is men’s business to earn money and theirs to spend it.

It is a curious fact that in bad days we can very vividly recall the good time that is now no more; but that in good days we have only a very cold and imperfect memory of the bad.

Life is a task to be done. It is a fine thing to say defunctus est; it means that the man has done his task.

I he scenes of our life are like pictures done in rough mosaic. Looked at close, they produce no effect. There is nothing beautiful to be found in them, unless you stand some distance off.

It is only in the microscope that our life looks so big. It is an indivisible point, drawn out and magnified by the powerful lenses of Time and Space.

The fly ought to be used as the symbol of impertinence and audacity; for whilst all other animals shun man more than anything else, and run away even before he comes near them, the fly lights upon his very nose.

Every hero is a Samson. The strong man succumbs to the intrigues of the weak and the many; and if in the end he loses all patience he crushes both them and himself.

Happiness of any given life is to be measured, not by its joys and pleasures, but by the extent to which it has been free from suffering—from positive evil.

Whatever folly men commit, be their shortcomings or their vices what they may, let us exercise forbearance; remember that when these faults appear in others it is our follies and vices that we behold.

What makes people hard-hearted is this, that each man has, or fancies he has, as much as he can bear in his own troubles.

There is one respect in which brutes show real wisdom when compared with us—I mean their quiet, placid enjoyment of the present moment.

Men need some kind of external activity, because they are inactive within.

Necessity is the constant scourge of the lower classes, ennui of the higher ones.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

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

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.

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

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome-to be got over.

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.

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

The memory should be specially taxed in youth, since it is then that it is strongest and most tenacious. But in choosing the things that should be committed to memory the utmost care and forethought must be exercised; as lessons well learnt in youth are never forgotten.

Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but is also a disruption of thought.

If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

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

If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.

The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party when the masks are dropped.

The amount of noise which anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity.

Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to dramatic art, for the object of journalism is to make events go as far as possible.

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

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

Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self-evident.

The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.