Hence, in all countries the chief occupation of society is card-playing, and it is the gauge of its value, and an outward sign that it is bankrupt in thought. Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another’s money. Idiots!

NOT to my contemporaries, not to my compatriots but to mankind I commit my now completed work in the confidence that it will not be without value for them, even if this should be late recognised, as is commonly the lot of what is good. For it cannot have been for the passing generation, engrossed with the delusion of the moment, that my mind, almost against my will, has uninterruptedly stuck to its work through the course of a long life. preface to the second edition of "the world as will and representation

We deceive and flatter no one by such delicate artificies as we do our own selves.

Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.

To expect a man to retain everything that he has ever read is like expecting him to carry about in his body everything that he has ever eaten.

Reasonable and vicious are quite consistent with each other, in fact, only through their union are great and far-reaching crimes possible

To read a book is to hold an entire world in the palm of your hand. That world is unique to you; no two readers can ever inhabit the same world