Quotes from Arthur Schopenhauer

to be superior (überlegen) to others in real life, the indispensable condition is to be thoughtful and deliberate (überlegt), in other words, to set to work in accordance with concepts.

There is only one inborn error, and that is the notion that we exist in order to be happy….So long as we persist in this inborn error, and indeed even become confirmed in it through optimistic dogmas, the world seems to us full of contradictions.

although the absurd, as a rule, predominates, and it seems impossible that the voice of the individual can ever penetrate through the chorus of the befooling and the befooled, there yet remains to the genuine works of every age a quite peculiar, silent, slow, and powerful influence...

Ordinary people think merely how they shall spend their time; a man of any talent tries to use it.

Therefore, without doubt, the happiest destiny on earth is to have the rare gift of a rich individuality, and, more especially to be possessed of a good endowment of intellect; this is the happiest destiny, though it may not be, after all, a very brilliant one.

A man strives to get direct mastery over things either by understanding them or by compulsion. But a woman is always and everywhere driven to indirect mastery, namely through a man; all her direct mastery being limited to him alone.

Just as the faults of princes must be expiated by whole nations, the errors of great minds extend their influence over whole generations and even over centuries. They grow and propagate themselves, and finally degenerate into monstrosities. All this arises from the fact that as Berkeley says: "few men think, yet all will have opinions.

The ordinary life of every day, so far as it is not moved by passion, is tedious and insipid; and if it is so moved, it soon becomes painful.

Nature is unfathomable because we seek after causes and consequences in a realm where this form is not to be found. We try to reach the inner being of nature, which looks out at us from every phenomenon, under the guidance of the principle of sufficient reason - whereas this is merely the form under which our intellect comprehends appearance, i.e. the surface of things, while we want to employ it beyond the bounds of appearance; for within these bounds it is serviceable and sufficient.

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.

There is more to be learnt from every page of David Hume than from the collected philosophical works of Hegel, Herbart, and Schleiermacher are taken together.

Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed.