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It would be better if there were nothing. Since there is more pain than pleasure on earth, every satisfaction is only transitory, creating new desires and new distresses, and the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer

Arthur Schopenhauer

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Arthur Schopenhauer
Age: 72 †
Born: 1788
Born: February 22
Died: 1860
Died: September 21
Musicologist
Philosopher
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Danzig
Better
Creating
Devourer
Nothing
Animal
Distresses
Every
Since
Devoured
Always
Pleasure
Transitory
Would
Greater
Agony
Pain
Distress
Desire
Desires
Earth
Satisfaction

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Money alone is absolutely good, because it is not only a concrete satisfaction of one need in particular it is an abstract satisfaction of all.
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The first forty years of life give us the text the next thirty supply the commentary on it.
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There are 80,000 prostitutes in London alone and what are they, if not bloody sacrifices on the altar of monogamy?
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The first forty years of our life give the text, the next thirty furnish the commentary upon it, which enables us rightly to understand the true meaning and connection of the text with its moral and its beauties.
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One should use common words to say uncommon things
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Just as a stream flows smoothly on as long as it encounters no obstruction, so the nature of man and animal is such that we never really notice or become conscious of what is agreeable to our will if we are to notice something, our will has to have been thwarted, has to have experienced a shock of some kind.
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There are three stages in the revelation of truth. The first is to be ridiculed, the second is to be resisted and the third is to be considered self-evident.
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A man of correct insight among those who are duped and deluded resembles one whose watch is right while all the clocks in the town give the wrong time.
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Time is that in which all things pass away.
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Rudeness is better than any argument it totally eclipses intellect.
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alent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach genius is like the marksman who hits a target, as far as which others cannot even see.
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The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.
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Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to dramatic art, for the object of journalism is to make events go as far as possible.
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I love looking at famous people. Because of the way they look. Because of the way photography makes them look famous.
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Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends, finally, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our consciousness and what we compare it to - better and we envious and sad, worse and we feel grateful and happy.
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The greatest intellectual capacities are only found in connection with a vehement and passionate will.
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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?
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It is only a man's own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else's meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.
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