958 Quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

That human life must be some kind of mistake is sufficiently proved by the simple observation that man is a compound of needs which are hard to satisfy; that their satisfaction achieves nothing but a painless condition in which he is only given over to boredom . . .

All wanting comes from need, therefore from lack, therefore from suffering.

Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.

He who can see truly in the midst of general infatuation is like a man whose watch keeps good time, when all clocks in the town in which he lives are wrong. He alone knows the right time; what use is that to him?

If God made the world, I would not be that God, for the misery of the world would break my heart.

The man who goes up in a balloon does not feel as if he were ascending; he only sees the earth sinking deeper below him.

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

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

Students and scholars of all kinds and of every age aim, as a rule, only at information, not insight. They make it a point of honour to have information about everything, every stone, plant, battle, or experiment and about all books, collectively and individually. It never occurs to them that information is merely a means to insight, but in itself is of little or no value.