Arthur Schopenhauer quotes

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his work on pessimism and the nature of human desire. His major work, "The World as Will and Representation," greatly influenced existentialist and psychoanalytic thought. He is remembered for his profound impact on later philosophers and for shaping modern philosophical discourse. Here are 353 of his quotes:

Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of ones own.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

Arthur Schopenhauer

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

Arthur Schopenhauer

Compassion is the basis of morality.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Every child is in a way a genius; and every genius is in a way a child.

Arthur Schopenhauer

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.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Honour is external conscience, and conscience is inward honour.

Arthur Schopenhauer

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

Arthur Schopenhauer

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

Arthur Schopenhauer

Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world.

Arthur Schopenhauer

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

Arthur Schopenhauer

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arthur Schopenhauer

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

Arthur Schopenhauer

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.

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

How very paltry and limited the normal human intellect is, and how little lucidity there is in the human consciousness, may be judged from the fact that, despite the ephemeral brevity of human life, the uncertainty of our existence and the countless enigmas which press upon us from all sides, everyone does not continually and ceaselessly philosophize, but that only the rarest of exceptions do.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

Arthur Schopenhauer