Arthur Schopenhauer

"There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity."

"Life is a constant process of dying."

"Unless suffering is the direct and immediate object of life, our existence must entirely fail of its aim. It is absurd to look upon the enormous amount of pain that abounds everywhere in the world, and originates in needs and necessities inseparable from life itself, as serving no purpose at all and the result of mere chance. Each separate misfortune, as it comes, seems, no doubt, to be something exceptional; but misfortune in general is the rule. I know of no greater absurdity than that propounded by most systems of philosophy in declaring evil to be negative in its character. Evil is just what is positive; it makes its own existence felt."

"Rascals are always sociable, and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others company."

"The Jews are the scum of the earth, but they are also great masters in lying."

"It will generally be found that as soon the terrors of live reach the point where they outweigh the terrors of death, a man will put an end to his life."

"It will generally be found that, as soon as the terrors of life reach the point at which they outweigh the terrors of death, a man will put an end to his life. But the terrors of death offer considerable resistance; they stand like a sentinel at the gate leading out of this world. Perhaps there is no man alive who would not have already put an end to his life, if this end had been of a purely negative character, a sudden stoppage of existence. There is something positive about it; it is the destruction of the body; and a man shrinks from that, because his body is the manifestation of the will to live."

"One simple test of the claim that the pleasure in the world outweighs the pain…is to compare the feelings of an animal that is devouring another with those of the animal being devoured."

"I cannot here withhold the statement that optimism, where it is not merely the thoughtless talk of those who harbor nothing but words under their shallow foreheads, seems to me to be not merely an absurd, but also a really wicked, way of thinking, a bitter mockery of the most unspeakable sufferings of mankind."

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

"How is it possible that suffering that is neither my own nor of my concern should immediately affect me as though it were my own, and with such force that is moves me to action?"

"Compassion is the basis of morality."

"It is for this reason that we find that co-existence, which could neither be intime alone, for time has no contiguity, nor in space alone, forspace has no before, after, or now,"

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

"Truth that is naked is the most beautiful."

"Any foolish boy can stamp on a beetle, but all the professors in the world cannot make a beetle."

"Marrying means to halve one's rights and double one's duties"

"Clio, the muse of history, is as thoroughly infected with lies as a street whore with syphilis."

"I have long held the opinion that the amount of noise that anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity and therefore be regarded as a pretty fair measure of it."

"There is an underlying unity in all things"