Arthur Schopenhauer quotes

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“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.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“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.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“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.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“A man can be himself only so long as he is alone.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“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.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“To live alone is the fate of all great souls.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“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.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“Compassion is the basis of morality.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“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.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“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.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“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.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer