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

A sense of humour is the only divine quality of man

The word of man is the most durable of all material.

The greatest intellectual capacities are only found in connection with a vehement and passionate will.

Writers may be classified as meteors, planets, and fixed stars.

If I maintain my silence about my secret it is my prisoner...if I let it slip from my tongue, I am ITS prisoner.

Want and boredom are indeed the twin poles of human life.