If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?

We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.

The life of every individual, viewed as a whole and in general, and when only its most significant features are emphasized, is really a tragedy; but gone through in detail it has the character of a comedy.

Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.

The shortness of life, so often lamented, may be the best thing about it.

The objective half of life and reality is in the hand of fate, and accordingly takes various forms in different cases: the subjective half is ourself, and in essentials it always remains the same.

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

Any foolish boy can stamp on a beetle, but all the professors in the world cannot make a beetle.

If life — the craving for which is the very essence of our being — were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing.