Quotes from Arthur Schopenhauer

What a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has or how he is regarded by others.

Every state of welfare, every feeling of satisfaction, is negative in its character; that is to say, it consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of existence.

If God made the world, I would not be that God, for the misery of the world would break my heart.

A sense of humour is the only divine quality of man

To call the world God is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym.

Vulgar people take huge delight in the faults and follies of great men.

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life.

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

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.

There is only one inborn error. and that is the notion that we exist in order to be happy.

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people. There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness.

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.

The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness.

With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.

The little honesty that exists among authors is discernible in the unconscionable way they misquote from the writings of others.

It is only the hope of what is claimed that begets and nurishes the wish.

The animal lacks both anxiety and hope because its consciousness is restricted to what is clearly evident and thus to the present moment: the animal is the present incarnate.

If there is anything in the world that can really be called a man's property, it is surely that which is the result of his mental activity.

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

I've never known any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage.

We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.

It's the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards.

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.