All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed.
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.
To live alone is the fate of all great souls.
A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.
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.
Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first.
The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.
The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.
After your death you will be what you were before your birth.
I've never known any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage.
Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.
Compassion is the basis of morality.
The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.
The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness.
Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.
Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.
Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.
Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies.
Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.
They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.
It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.
Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.
Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.
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.
Music is the melody whose text is the world.
Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.
Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune.
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.
Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.
Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.
Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head.
The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.
We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.
With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.
Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.
Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.
The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.
There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.
Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.
Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own.
Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.
Honor means that a man is not exceptional; fame, that he is. Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost.
The longer a man's fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming.
If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him.
