Top 44 Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes

The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.

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

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

To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.

A man’s delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away.

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

Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.

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

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

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.

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

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.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

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

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

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

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

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.

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 with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.

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.

The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.

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.

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

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.

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

The longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming.

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.

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

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

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.

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.