Arthur Schopenhauer

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

When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. In learning to write, the pupil goes over with his pen what the teacher has outlined in pencil: so in reading; the greater part of the work of thought is already done for us. This is why it relieves us to take up a book after being occupied with our own thoughts. And in reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of another__ thoughts. So it comes about that if anyone spends almost the whole day in reading, and by way of relaxation devotes the intervals to some thoughtless pastime, he gradually loses the capacity for thinking; just as the man who always rides, at last forgets how to walk. This is the case with many learned persons: they have read themselves stupid.

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

Time is that by which at every moment all things become as nothing in our hands, and thereby lose all their true value.

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.

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

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

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

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

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 to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself; because only through ordering what you know by comparing every truth with every other truth can you take complete possession of your knowledge and get it into your power.

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.

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

Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune.

It is easy to understand that in the dreary middle ages the Aristotelian logic would be very acceptable to the controversial spirit of the schoolmen, which, in the absence of all real knowledge, spent its energy upon mere formulas and words, and that it would be eagerly adopted even in its mutilated Arabian form, and presently established as the centre of all knowledge.

Let us see rather that like Janus__r better, like Yama, the Brahmin god of death__eligion has two faces, one very friendly, one very gloomy...

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

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

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