Top 500 Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. This is an error of the intellect as inevitable as that error of the eye which lets you fancy that on the horizon heaven and earth meet.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

52. “Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

53. “He who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

54. “Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

55. “A hedge between keeps friendship green.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

56. “Money is human happiness in the abstract.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

57. “No rose without a thorn but many a thorn without a rose.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

58. “Pleasure is never as pleasant as we expected it to be and pain is always more painful. The pain in the world always outweighs the pleasure. If you don’t believe it, compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is eating the other.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

59. “To use many words to communicate few thoughts is everywhere the unmistakable sign of mediocrity. To gather much thought into few words stamps the man of genius.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

60. “There is something in us that is wiser than our head.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

61. “The common man is not concerned about the passage of time, the man of talent is driven by it.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

62. “Every child is in a way a genius; and every genius is in a way a child.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

63. “To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

64. “In reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of another’s thoughts.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

65. “If God made this world, then I would not want to be the God. It is full of misery and distress that it breaks my heart.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

66. “Vedas are the most rewarding and the most elevating book which can be possible in the world.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

67. “Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, “Lighthouses” as the poet said “erected in the sea of time.” They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind, Books are humanity in print.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

68. “The life of every individual is really always a tragedy, but gone through in detail, it has the character of a comedy.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

69. “A man becomes a philosopher by reason of a certain perplexity, from which he seeks to free himself.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

70. “The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

71. “Truth is most beautiful undraped.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

72. “No one can transcend their own individuality.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

73. “Time is that in which all things pass away.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

74. “Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

75. “The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

76. “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.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

77. “Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

78. “Genius is an intellect that has become unfaithful to its destiny.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

79. “Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are its tormented souls.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

80. “Life is full of troubles and vexations, that one must either rise above it by means of corrected thoughts, or leave it.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

81. “It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

82. “It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. For politeness is like a counter – an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

83. “I believe that when death closes our eyes we shall awaken to a light, of which our sunlight is but the shadow.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

84. “Faith is like love: it does not let itself be forced.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

85. “We seldom speak of what we have but often of what we lack.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

86. “The man who goes up in a balloon does not feel as if he were ascending; he only sees the earth sinking deeper below him.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

87. “Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

88. “Scoundrels are always sociable.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

89. “You must treat a work of art like a great man: stand before it and wait patiently till it deigns to speak.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

90. “Directly after copulation, the devil’s laughter is heard.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

91. “Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

93. “Talent works for money and fame; the motive which moves genius to productivity is, on the other hand, less easy to determine.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

94. “The cause of laughter is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real project.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

95. “Everybody’s friend is nobody’s.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— Arthur Schopenhauer

97. “It is only in the microscope that our life looks so big. It is an indivisible point, drawn out and magnified by the powerful lenses of Time and Space.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

98. “The tallest oak tree once was an acorn that any pig could have swallowed.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

99. “No greater mistake can be made than to imagine that what has been written latest is always the more correct; that what is written later on is an improvement on what was written previously; and that every change means progress.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

100. “Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer