Optimism is not only a false but also a pernicious doctrine, for it presents life as a desirable state and man's happiness as its aim and object. Starting from this, everyone then believes he has the most legitimate claim to happiness and enjoyment. If, as usually happens, these do not fall to his lot, he believes that he suffers an injustice, in fact that he misses the whole point of his existence.

The less one, as a result of objective or subjective conditions, has to come into contact with people, the better off one is for it.

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.

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.

Pride is generally censured and decried, but mainly by those who have nothing to be proud of.

universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

Every truth passes through 3 stages before it is recognized 1)ridicule 2) opposition 3) accepted as self-evident.