Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes

It would be a great mistake to suppose that it is sufficient not to become personal yourself. For by showing a man quite quietly that he is wrong, and that what he says and thinks is incorrect — a process which occurs in every dialectical victory — you embitter him more than if you used some rude or insulting expression. Why is this? Because, as Hobbes observes, all mental pleasure consists in being able to compare oneself with others to one’s own advantage. — Nothing is of greater moment to a man than the gratification of his vanity, and no wound is more painful than that which is inflicted on it. Hence such phrases as “Death before dishonour,” and so on.

The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.

Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.

Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first it is ridiculed in the second it is opposed in the third it is regarded as self-evident.

Reason deserves to be called a prophet for in showing up the consequence and effect of our actions in the present does it not tell us what the future will be?

Pride is the direct appreciation of oneself.

Time is that in which all things pass away.

Compassion is the basis of all morality.