Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes

The universe is a dream dreamed by a single dreamer
where all the dream characters dream too.

The life of every individual is really always a tragedy,
but gone through in detail, 
it has the character of a comedy.

We will gradually become indifferent 
to what goes on in the minds of other people 
when we acquire a knowledge of the superficial nature of their thoughts, 
the narrowness of their views and
of the number of their errors. 
Whoever attaches a lot of value to the opinions of others pays them too much honor.

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.

Fun is the cash coin of happiness;
everything else is credit cards.

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

A human being is the only animal that causes pain to others,
not having any other purpose.

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

Change alone is eternal,
perpetual,
immortal.

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

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.

Truth that has been merely learned 
is like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a waxen nose; 
at best, like a nose made out of another’s flesh; 
it adheres to us only because it is put on. 
But truth acquired by thinking of our own is like a natural limb; 
it alone really belongs to us. 
This is the fundamental difference between 
the thinker and the mere man of learning.

The task is,
not so much to see what no one has seen yet;
but to think what nobody has thought yet,
about that which everybody sees.

Don't tell your friend
what your enemy should not know.

Sorrow is the beginning of philosophy.

He who does not like being alone,
does not love freedom.

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

Every nation ridicules other nations,
and all are right.

Every love is based on sexual instinct.

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

The majority of men.. are not capable of thinking,
but only of believing, and..
are not accessible to reason,
but only to authority.

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself,
but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

Genius and madness have something in common:
both live in a world that is different from
that which exists for everyone else.

Without books the development of civilization 
would have been impossible. 
They are the engines of change, 
windows on the world, 
"Lighthouses" as the poet said 
"erected in the sea of time." 
They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind, 
Books are humanity in print.

We seldom think of what we have 
but always of what we lack.
Therefore, rather than grateful,
we are bitter.

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.

If anybody spends almost the whole day in reading..
he gradually loses the capacity for thinking...
This is the case with many learned persons;
they have read themselves stupid.

I have not yet spoken my last word about women. 
I believe that if a woman succeeds 
in withdrawing from the mass, 
or rather raising herself from above the mass, 
she grows ceaselessly and more than a man.

Mostly it is loss which teaches us 
about the worth of things.

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

A sense of humour is the only divine quality of man.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

In the world there is no study beneficial 
and as elevating as that of The Upanishads. 
It has been the solace of my life,
it will be the solace of my death.

There is not a grain of dust,
not an atom that can become nothing,
yet man believes that death 
is the annihilation of his being.

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

To overcome difficulties is to 
experience the full delight of existence.

Materialism is the philosophy of the subject 
who forgets to take account of himself.

Always to see the general in the particular
is the very foundation of genius.

Compassion for animals is intimately associated 
with goodness of character, 
and it may be confidently asserted that 
he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.